A story by Josep Maria Serra
Herminia was angry. Very angry. He had come to the idea that when he got home after school he would play with Vanessa, the doll the Kings had brought him. It had come to him in a huge cardboard box that she had kept with affection to serve him as a home. For this he had made some beautiful drawings on colored papers that he had glued to the box. She had been very pretty.
Hermina often thought she had a better time turning the cardboard box into a house than playing with her wrist. That day he had a great idea to make a roof and a fireplace and so, when he came home and his mother announced that they would go look at some furniture, Herminia got angry, and a lot. He got angry but little more he could do.
Herminia fastened her seat belt. Her mother, who was driving, looked at her from time to time through the rear-view mirror and smiled at her insides looking at the moody face of her daughter. He parked without having heard the girl's voice once.
Along the way Herminia was doing projects in her notebook for Vanessa's home. I was planning to add a module to it. I needed another. large cardboard box.
They started walking down the hall: sofas, tables, kitchens, bathrooms, paintings, lamps... Herminia was still with her face of few friends. He wasn't interested in anything, but nothing was around him. She was just thinking about her cardboard box and how she would make it into a real, beautiful home.
His mother stood every two by three and filled the car he had taken. That if you get some cushions, that if a painting, that if some bulbs, that if some glasses... the cart was getting more and more full and Herminia getting bored and angry. Not only did the arrival of children’s objects make him change his face, even though he did look at some dolls with a glance. But since he didn't want to give his arm to twist, he kept frowning.
Suddenly the store was over and they went into some sort of giant warehouse full of boxes. Full, but very full. Up to the ceiling there were cardboard boxes and this that the roof was tall as a skyscraper in the girl's eyes.
Herminia got dizzy, gave her a vahydo. “How many cardboard boxes!”He told his mother by opening her mouth for the first time since they had left home. “Why haven’t we come in here?” Herminia found the store full of cardboard boxes much more suggestive than the store. He was having a hard time breathing. Without her knowing it, she was suffering from Stendhal's Syndrome.
“We have to deliver these boxes quickly!” shouted a boy next to him in a powerful voice, pulling him out of his self-absorbing and scaring him.
“Can we buy a box?” he told his mother that he had already realized that something was wrong with his daughter. “Not a box, but what’s inside is, and don’t worry that we’ll take it home into the cardboard box so it’s well protected,” his mother answered. “I want this!” she said excitedly pointing out a box that seemed ideal for her project to expand Vanessa’s house.
The mother began to laugh eagerly. “Look Herminia, not this one, but let’s look for the one that contains the little table that we’re going to buy. He's in hall 14. Help me find him that I miss.”
Herminia stretched her head and immediately found the hallway that her mother had told her. “He’s there, he’s there!” he shouted by stretching out the cart his mother was trying to control. They came to the right point and as soon as he saw the box they were going to buy, his eyes opened like oranges. It was a wonderful cardboard box. Now the goal was to go home quickly, take whatever it was that protected the box and start expanding the house of his wrist.
Throughout the journey Herminia kept talking about what she was going to build with that cardboard box. “It looks like a lie what a cardboard box can accomplish!” the mother thought listening to her.
That night Herminia dreamed of building a whole urbanization. The first thing he thought when he woke up was that he was going to need a lot of cardboard boxes.
