"Coelho's daughter" - 3-Part Weekend Freewrite

"Sir", Katherine intervened, "we were trying to help my brother." The doctor scrutinized her up and down, as one who is in the presence of an incomprehensible apparition, and replied, "If he told me he had no brothers, where did you come from?" but he did not wait for any answer, he went on his way with the haste that busy people always carry. Katherine could not understand it, they had all been taken out of the room where Peter, a great friend for ever, was confined, though to her he was, like all the others, a brother. From the moment she heard that Peter had suffered a relapse, she had been trying to convince her friends to go to see him, to encourage him, to tell him not to give up, because that's what life is all about, stumbling, falling and getting up, again and again, until we reach our goals. Her colleagues knew that in that medical center they did not let everyone in; much less them who were dressed in any way and boasting of being the happiest people in the world; however, Katherine did not listen to reason, she said she had the disposition and the power to convince anyone with her arguments of optimism and happiness, with her motivational phrases extracted, according to her friends when they wanted to make fun of her, from the pages of Google. She called herself "The Warrior of Light", but her colleagues, when she did not listen to them, simply called her "Coelho's daughter".

An hour later, while they were still in the cafeteria, Peter appeared. He was paler than ever and the delicacy of his appearance seemed to have been accentuated in the last few hours, and although he tried to make his enthusiasm seem real, it was evident that in the depths of his soul there was a hint of anguish that did not allow him to act to the fullest. As soon as they looked at him, they all rushed to embrace him to express their joy that the sudden crisis had not become major; only Katherine remained nailed to her chair staring at the group fixedly. "Look," exclaimed one of them, pointing to where "Coelho's daughter" was standing, "that one wouldn't move from this place until she could talk to you, and now she's standing there very quietly. Peter looked up above the group and said, "She has only one direction she can move- directly towards me." Then Katherine ran up with open arms and gave him such a tight squeeze that for an instant it seemed she was going to break him; meanwhile she was whispering in his ear a series of inspirational phrases that the still convalescent boy could barely understand: "Peter, dreams are not impossible, everything can be if you wish it; remember that your heart is a treasure and that you must rummage in the map of your conscience to find it; from now on, stop calling pain, let it pass you by so that you can occupy yourself with being happy; try to do what pleases you most and your life will not pass in vain..." Peter broke off for a moment, looked her straight in the face, between amused and grateful, to say, "That's too much even for you who are from Coelho's daughter, you'd better write it down for me to read later. Katherine opened her eyes wide when she learned of the name she was given, but she returned to her arms and remained silent.

As soon as their friends left, Katherine and Peter walked aimlessly through the streets; their steps led them to a park where they had been several times enjoying endless chats until the night surprised them with its dark mantle. The place, at that time of the afternoon, was full of children running around, changing their play preferences at every moment. They sat on the best-kept grass of the site, the one in front of the swings that came and went, while the little ones shouted unconcernedly. Katherine concentrated for a moment and was inspired by the swings to make up a story for Peter that was meant to kindle the best light the youngster had in his heart: "See those swings coming and going, Peter? That's what time is like, that's what life is like: an eternal back-and-forth that can carry us away if we don't try to understand it. Because everything has its good side and its bad side, and warriors like us must be attentive to neutralize the negative and take advantage of what makes us good, what makes us happy. Those swings, for example, swing because they have good ropes to hold them, but those same ropes can catch a hand - which the universe does not allow - of one of those children and then we could no longer say that it is a good rope..." Peter lay down on the grass and before he finished his story, he said, "I have no doubt: you are Coelho's daughter."