Las Estrellas Púrpuras Jugosas Bajo el Puente

“This is not my morning! I am not getting out of bed; I refuse to acknowledge the knocking at my door. Why can’t people respect a girl’s peace?” moaned Jessie. She sat up in bed and pitched her pillow at the disturbance of her sleep.

“Making sure you’re up,” her mother replied in that cheery good morning voice that could drive a nun crazy.
Why, oh why, did it have to be morning, she thought. She was not prepared to face the mass crowds and the callous hags that roamed the halls of high school.
“Life is brutally unjust,” she cried as she rolled from her cozy bed to the hard wood floor. “If only life could go back to the simple more refreshing days, when I didn’t have to get out of bed until ten o’clock back when I was small, and Dad and I would pretend to be explorers.”
I was small, and Dad and I would pretend to be explorers.”
Pulling out a fresh T-shirt, Jessie reflected on life. Being a kid had been so much fun. She was free and loved, but it seemed as if life had never been the same since the move to San José. High school was not kindergarten; life outside of her playhouse was havoc.
Today she was running late, and she hoped she could slip into first hour English without being noticed. As she plopped into her seat, she looked up and saw on the board the writing assignment that was due today concerning significant childhood memories.
“Snap,” she thought, “I don’t have it done.” She quickly rummaged through her backpack to see if she had any loose paper with something, anything, written on it. To her relief, she found an old Spanish essay.
Just as she got the paper in hand, she heard her name called to read her story. She shot up a quick prayer and headed to the front of the class with her fake essay by her side.
She proceeded to intro he paper by saying, “This story is significant to me because when I was little my Dad was my best friend. She then began to pretend to read her childhood memory.
When I was small, my Dad and I would pretend to be explorers. We would fly to space on his rocket ship and pretend to live in castle and I was the Princess. I would long for the weekends that I would get to spend with my Dad. My days with him were complete compared to my Mother’s house where I had to go to school and never had time to play.
His motorcycle was our rocket ship, and our castle was under the overpass on the express way. We would go for long flights to our castle, on a distant planet. There we would explore great lands and search for unknown treasures. Every moment with my Dad was fun.

It was a tradition each time we ventured under the bridge, to drink cream soda and stick our chewed grape bubbleyum to the underside of the bridge. Our pieces of gum joined with many other pieces of traveler’s gum to create a mural image of stars in the sky. My Dad nicknamed this mural, Las Estrellas Púrpuras Jugosas Bajo el Puente. In English this means, Juicy purple stars under the bridge.
When I was eight years old, my Dad was on his way to pick me up for another weekend adventure. Unfortunately, before my Dad reached mi casa, he took his last rocket ship ride. He now resides in a far away castle in the sky.

From that moment on, the rocket ship was just a motorcycle, the castle was just the underside of a bridge, and my juicy purple stars were just gum. What still remains reality today is that my Dad will always be the King in the eyes of this Princess.

Before Jessie returned to her seat, she handed in her fake paper to her teacher, Miss Magilicuttie. Her teacher looked it over She praised Jessie for her wonderful story, but politely asked her to translate it into English. Jessie smiled, and nodded to Miss Magilicuttie and was glad that her precious memories of rocket ships, castles and purple stars could come back to life.