SHORT STORY BY: Pierre Ralph Wesh
ARTIST STATEMENT: I have been working on this story as long as I can remember. When we were assigned to write about how the generation gap has affected us in ESOL21W: Intermediate / High Intermediate Second Language Writing, I knew this was the story I wanted to write. I am so excited about the opportunity to publish this story.
ABOUT THIS STORY
By Prof. Rachel Gertzog
Pierre is quadrilingual (Haitian Creole, French, Spanish, and English), with English his least fluid language. A gifted romantic, he favors bold creative expression over formulaic development.
I encouraged him to submit his story “Claramente (Clearly),” about a love interest, Clara (Clarity), because it showcases his translingual wordplay and his respectful, yet tortured, depiction of breaking from his mother’s faith — “killing God in his mother’s eyes.”
Though his narrative is in English, his characters speak three other languages, demonstrating effective polyglotism.
I remember the day I killed God in my mom’s eyes.
The clock on the wall had just struck eight. Outside, the wind brushed against the window. But inside me was a rainbow exploding in thousands of colors and light, and at its center was Clara, who finally said yes to me. My heart blossomed. Life was a fragrance of happiness.
Suddenly, a voice pulled me back to reality.
“Is everything okay?”
My mom sat in the kitchen, studying as if she were consuming the Bible itself.
I got out of bed and leaned into the doorway, holding the frame as I answered.
“I’m good, Mom.”
“I don’t remember the last time you went to sleep so early,” she murmured, lowering her gaze back to the Bible through her glasses, like the Oracle from The Matrix.
I smiled softly seeing her worry, unaware that my life was a quiet celebration.
I went back to my bed, back to my memories. I wasn’t ready yet to leave that world.
…
Back in Chile, Clara was impossible not to notice. The first time I saw her, I was playing the piano in a church. She gathered all the eyes as she walked in.
I learned her name from someone in the choir. I told him I would get her number after the service. He laughed.
“Bro. You don’t knock down stars by throwing stones at them. Even for us Chileans, she’s out of reach. And you don’t even speak Spanish.”
Months later, I was at the Plaza de Armas in downtown Santiago when something caught my attention: a girl sitting alone. She looked beautiful, but there was something heavy in her expression. I looked closer.
Clara.
“It’s the second time I see an angel, but the first time I see one sad. Hello.”
Without turning, she replied, “I came here because I wanted to be alone.”
“Me, too … maybe we can be alone together.”
She turned to me and smiled. And in that moment, I felt like I had reached her, or maybe just imagined that I had. I said, “I like that smile. It suits you better. Could I buy you another one?” She smiled, this time more openly.
“When was the first time?”
“What?”
“You mentioned it’s the second time you’ve seen an angel. When was the first?”
“It was in a church. And her name was Clara.”
As she realized I was referring to her, that I already knew who she was, her mood shifted. I thought my accent would hit the wrong notes, but it seems like it was music to her ears.
“What was that sadness before?”
She hesitated for a moment, then said, “I’m planning to study abroad.”
“Abroad?” She nodded.
“It means leaving Chile … leaving everything I know … starting over somewhere. You can’t imagine what that means to me.”
Of course I understood.
“That’s not something bad. I’m a foreigner, too,” I told her. “And things are going well for me.” I paused. “Sometimes leaving is the beginning of something better.”
When it came time to exchange our numbers, she chose to take mine.
I never heard from her again. No message, no call, no trace.
…
I was replaying that moment in my mind when my mother’s voice woke me once more.
“Sweetheart”—the way she used to call me—”What if you came to pray with me? Maybe it will make you feel better.”
“Mom, I feel good … Actually, something happened.”
It was finally time to tell her about my girlfriend, that we had been seeing each other for months.
“Sweetheart, let’s talk about it later. Now is the prayer time.”
I couldn’t believe that she didn’t even ask me what the news was.
“Do you see that? You’re not even interested in me. When it comes to your religion … I mean … your God things … your God stuff.’”
“My God things?” she said, hands on her hips. “That’s my salvation you’re talking about. Bite your tongue!”
“OK, Mom, I got it.” I let her know she was in control, as always. I cut through that electric tension that could make the air hard to breathe. My mother was always overinflated with biblical verses, read for a sinner with thorns.
After the prayer, I went to my room. What would make someone prefer a God she had never seen or heard over her own son, who stands right next to her in flesh and blood? I started wondering how endemic animals like koalas and kangaroos could have reached Australia after the flood. What about the ice at the poles and the rain during Noah’s time? What about dinosaur bones that are millions of years old, while the Bible describes a timeline of ten thousand years since creation and the first man? I had read a sacred book filled with stories of genocide and sacrifices commanded by God.
Beliefs have divided families, communities, and even entire countries throughout history. I had never seen animals divided into clans because of belief. How could a being as intelligent as humans fall into such a mental trap? Was it intelligence, or ignorance? God or human, who truly created the other?
How easy it would be to tell my mom about Clara, if she were just a simple person. How romantic it would sound to her, where I met Clara, when it all began. What once felt like fiction, even to me.
I never imagined that after coming here, I would meet her again.
…
Months after leaving everything behind to start over here in the US, I once again felt like a baby learning how to walk.
And suddenly, I remembered Clara. I wanted to know about her life.
Years had passed. I thought of Jaime, my old choir friend. He found her full name for me.
“What’s next, Ralph?” I asked myself.
I started searching. There she was, on Instagram. I reached out. She replied. We started talking. We were both living here in the U.S. Two immigrants who had once known each other in Chile. It was easy to understand each other.
It hadn’t taken long for us to meet each other again.
During those months, seeing each other became like a necessity. She made understand, it wasn’t that she didn’t like me. She just didn’t want to add another weight to the pain of leaving Chile.
…
I was about to fall asleep when suddenly a voice echoed:
“Ralph! … Clara!”
“Ralph? Clara?” I repeated, slowly. I froze. What did my mom mean by that? How did my mom know about Clara?”
I had left my phone near her. I felt it vibrating on the table, but I didn’t answer the call in time. I picked it up, looked at it, then looked at my mom.
“Actually. That’s what I wanted to talk about,” I said. “About Clara. You always ask me when it will be time for me to get married, to give you a grandchild.”
“Okay, sweetheart.” She took off her glasses looked at me. “Go ahead … I’m listening.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded and made a gesture with her hand. Sit down.
So I told her a little about Clara.
“Which province in Haiti is she from?” Immediately. Just as I expected. I knew where this was going.
“Does she have to be Haitian, Mom?”
“Of course.”
“She’s Chilean.”
“She’s a white girl.” She opened her Bible. Deuteronomy 7:3-4. “God says that the people of Israel should not marry with other nations”
The word came out, automatically: “God is so good.”
“Yes, He is,” she affirmed.
I couldn’t help feeling a relief she wasn’t born Jewish, thinking of the verse she had just quoted. But I didn’t dare to say what I really thought. She was pastor in Winter Haven. Sunday’s sermon would be about the prodigal son, and I would be the perfect example.
“Mom, why would God create all that diversity, and then limit His people from it?”
“If you were not an atheist, you could ask Him yourself. Maybe He would answer you. Now you have to live with that question, without an answer.”
“Maybe you’re right, Mom,” I said. “About questions that don’t have answers … if the one who is supposed to answer them maybe doesn’t even exist.”
The air changed. She turned slowly, staring at me, almost hypnotized. I could see there was a scream that her voice held back. I had left her speechless. She just stood there, mouth slightly open, silent.
The phone buzzed again on the table. Clara. Again.
I looked at the phone, then at her.
I let the call drop.
I turned slightly, pretending to look for something, trying to escape her view.
“Did you find what you weren’t looking for? Maybe you should look for your mind too, because you just lost it.”
Then I said it clearly.
“Mom, you know I don’t believe the same way.”
The room felt smaller. It was the first time I had dared to say so much.
“I’m not trying to trample your faith,” I said, more softly. “It would be like trying to break a rock with smoke. I’m just trying to be rational, trying to be myself. Mom, it doesn’t mean I have to share the same beliefs … my love for you is something else.”
She looked at me like I had broken something in her.
“When I was your age, I couldn’t say that to my parents.” Her voice didn’t sound strict, just tired, like she was carrying something old. “My mother wouldn’t even let me question anything. Not even once.”
I stayed silent.
“I used to have questions, too,” she continued. “But in my house, faith was not something you talked about. It was something you obeyed.”
I was looking at a different woman. The one standing in front of me, correcting me, telling me to bite my tongue, had once been a girl who also wanted to speak.
Then her voice hardened.
“And now you stand here, saying it so easily,” her voice tightening. “Like it means nothing.”
Our words that night burned more than they should have. Later, I realized it would have been better if I had been more careful with my words. Our differences is not the absence of love, but when love fails to speak the right language. All I wanted was for her to understand that every generation is free to build its own beliefs, that love is the greatest emotion humanity has ever known, which almost all life comes from. It shouldn’t divide us.
Even though we are separated by distance and beliefs now, she knows I carry her in my heart, just as I am part of her prayers.
And I can’t wait for the day I introduce her to Clara.
