HiveComb

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Marco Reyes had not looked up at the sky for the past eleven years. He held a grudge against it. Ever since his daughter died on a cold night.

She was just seven years old, and wishing to the sky was her favourite thing. She would stand there in her pretty princess dress on the apartment balcony in Buenos Aires barefoot. Eyes stretched to the sky, lips moving in a silent mumble, and whenever he asked what she was saying, she would shake her head and refuse to explain.

So all he'd do is stand there with her and watch her from the doorway, this tiny human conducting some secret business with the universe. It was funny yet cute. Marco would smile the way only fathers smile, with pride and terror in equal parts sitting softly in his heart.

He had asked her one night.
"What are you saying up there, Valentina?"

She turned and looked at him like he had asked a question everyone already knows the answer to.

"I'm making wishes, Papá."

"But nobody hears you speak."

"That's because you have to say them quietly or the stars can't hear you properly."

He laughed and pulled her inside. Gently, he tucked her into bed while explaining to her that stars were just burning gas millions of miles away and so her wishes were just words floating into thin air.

Valentina had looked at him with a painful glare. Then she said, "You don't believe in anything, do you? I feel sorry for you."

Three weeks later, Valentina was hit by a car that ran a red light on Avenida Corrientes.

And for eleven years, Marco became a man who loved his company. A man with no dream.

He moved to a small flat in Lisbon after he nearly lost his mind seeing his little daughter's face in the many corners of Buenos Aires where they had spent time together. From the ice cream shop on Palermo, to the park with the broken fountain she loved. It was so bad that he put bricks over the balcony so he could not look at it anymore. Nor did he look at the sky or make wishes.

As a translator, from Portuguese, Spanish, and English. He works at a government establishment mostly for legal documents, contracts, and things with no emotion in them. That was exactly why he still hasn't quit work. It was mainly translating language without feeling. Words that meant only what they said.

But on this particular Tuesday, a letter arrived.

It came from a children's school in his neighbourhood. It was a small envelope with a beautiful coloured drawing on the back. You would immediately know it was hasty work done by a kid.

He pulled out the letter inside. A scanty scribbling done with a pen:

'Dear Translator Man,' it read.

'My teacher says you help with words. I have a letter I wrote to my pen pal in Argentina, but I don't know if my Spanish is right. Can you help me? I live in the yellow building across from the town hall. Third floor. My name is Yara.'

Marco was enraged. He almost threw the paper away. But something in him held back. He just couldn't know why.

From the sender's address, Yara was a nine-year-old Moroccan girl missing her two front teeth.

He read it again and again. He felt a tightening in his chest, a warmth he hadn't felt in a long time, and a pain that was not entirely pain.

The letter was to a girl in Mendoza. It was about stars, about how she had read that in Argentina you could see the Milky Way with your naked eye from the countryside, and how she wished to see it every night.

Reluctantly, Marco sat down and fixed Yara's Spanish in the letter. Every word of it before standing up to return the letter to Yara's address so that Yara can send it to her pen pal herself.

Yara lived with her mum in a tiny apartment. Immediately he gave the letter back to her. Yara looked at him suspiciously. "You know you're not supposed to say wishes out loud. Hope you didn't read mine out loud."

"Why not?" Marco asked like he hadn't heard it before.

With a cute air of authority, Yara replied. "Because then the stars can't hear you properly."

Marco went numb for a while. It felt like a door he had jammed long ago had been opened again. He turned to Yara's mother and asked.

"Can I borrow the balcony for a moment?"

She nodded.

He stood outside on the balcony at night and got the first time in eleven years he looked up to the sky. It was full of stars. So beautiful. He stood there for a long time. And then, with a feeling that felt weird and not too caring, he made a wish silently so that the stars could hear him.

At first, he wanted to wish for her to be back, but then he realised it was wishing for the impossible. Instead, he wished to stop being a lonely man anymore and move on with his life. He wished to be alive again.

Six weeks later, he got a call from Yara's mum. It was actually Yara on the phone. They had become friends after that night after Yara's mum had made him stay for dinner. Mendoza had finally invited her over to see the stars, of course, with her parents' approval.

Marco was happy for her.

"You see Mr Marco, wishes do fine, true." She laughed. “Mendoza also said I should tell you that her papá came home last night after she wished on a star."

Marco smiled. Yara was right. Wishes do come true as he wasn't lonely anymore. He was seeing Yara's m now. His life wasn't full of pain anymore.

His wish had been answered.