Mexican Spanish Stories
La sierra no espera
The Sierra Waits for No One
Twelve hours. One liver. A hurricane between them and the sea.
Valeria Quiñones has until two in the afternoon to carry a donated liver from Durango to Ximena, an eight-year-old girl dying in Mazatlán. The airport is closed, the highway is buried under a landslide, and Hurricane Teodora is heading straight for the coast. The only way left is the Devil's Backbone, three hundred kilometers of mountain curves, on the back of a motorcycle ridden by the one man who can handle it in a storm: her ex-husband, whom she has not spoken to in six years.
- Languages
- Spanish & English
- Reading level
- B1-B2
- Length
- 12 chapters
Publication in preparation. Store link coming when available.
A short sample from the opening
Capítulo 1: Doce horas
Chapter 1: Twelve Hours
Es la una y media de la mañana en Durango, y Valeria Quiñones sostiene la mano de una mujer que acaba de perder a su hijo. Están sentadas en una salita sin ventanas del Hospital General, con una caja de pañuelos entre las dos y un café que nadie toca. La mujer se llama Rosa. Su hijo, Emiliano, tenía diecinueve años y una moto roja, y anoche, a las nueve, en la curva de La Ferrería, la moto y él se separaron para siempre. Ahora Emiliano respira solo porque una máquina respira por él. Su cerebro ya no está.
It is half past one in the morning in Durango, and Valeria Quiñones is holding the hand of a woman who has just lost her son. They are sitting in a small windowless room at the General Hospital, with a box of tissues between them and a coffee nobody touches. The woman’s name is Rosa. Her son, Emiliano, was nineteen and had a red motorcycle, and last night at nine, on the curve at La Ferrería, he and the motorcycle parted ways forever. Now Emiliano breathes only because a machine breathes for him. His brain is gone.
Valeria tiene treinta y ocho años y lleva once como coordinadora de donación de órganos. Es el trabajo más difícil del hospital, dicen sus compañeros, y ella no los contradice. Su trabajo es sentarse con las familias en el peor momento de su vida y hacerles una pregunta imposible. Nunca presiona. Nunca miente. Explica, escucha, espera. Esta noche ha esperado tres horas. Por fin Rosa levanta la cara, mojada, y dice con una voz muy clara:-Emiliano siempre decía que quería servir para algo. Que sirva.
Valeria is thirty-eight and has worked as an organ donation coordinator for eleven years. It is the hardest job in the hospital, her colleagues say, and she doesn’t contradict them. Her job is to sit with families at the worst moment of their lives and ask them an impossible question. She never pushes. She never lies. She explains, listens, waits. Tonight she has waited three hours. At last Rosa lifts her wet face and says, in a very clear voice:“Emiliano always said he wanted to be of use. Let him be of use.”
This is a short excerpt. The full novella has 12 chapters.
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