Carmen grew up in one of the poorest barrios in west Denver. She has two younger sisters and two older brothers. Her parents, Jorge and Jennifer, both work long hours, and Carmen is usually the one cooking and cleaning and taking care of the family, even though she is only 16. While her brothers are older, they are too busy getting into trouble and have no interest in cooking and cleaning and providing for the family.
That is a woman’s job, anyway.
Both of her parents work at a local motel, cleaning the dirtiest scum that humanity has to offer. Carmen’s only contact with her parents occurs late at night when they both come home, dusty, sweaty, tired and sore. Her father often tells her “Carmen we work all the time to help provide for this family. But we know you are destined for greatness. We love you. You will do something amazing.”
…
One night Carmen had a dream. In the dream she was cooking breakfast for her sisters and brothers, but the eggs kept falling off the plates. No matter what she did, they would slide onto the floor and explode into little balls of fire. She kept trying and trying, but they kept falling and falling and exploding and exploding. Meanwhile her brothers and sisters were screaming about how hungry they were, and she reached the point of giving up.
She thought to herself “why is this MY burden? Why must I cook and clean? I didn’t ask for this. I was born into this family. I didn’t create it.”
Then a shadowy figure appeared from behind a crack between the wall and the refrigerator. She looked into its eyes but noticed it didn’t have eyes, though she could still see them. They didn’t speak to each other, but somehow she knew who it was, though she couldn’t define who or what. It handed her a pair of cooking gloves with streaks of fire erupting from the finger tips and a green hammer. Instantly she knew what to do with them.
She began nailing the eggs to the table with the hammer. This proved to be the most difficult labor she’s experienced, but undaunted she hammered and hammered. Often, the nails would bend and wouldn’t pierce the egg’s yolk. She went through 123 nails and 8 dozen eggs. Eventually she only had three nailed to the table. Then she had an idea.
She began nailing her last carton of eggs (with only five eggs) to the table. She knew that if she nailed the carton to the table, her brothers and sisters would learn from her example and one day provide for themselves. And for some reason, through the illogic of it all, this made complete sense to her. Her example, while not helping them now, would in the future. She knew her parents were the hammer, she the nails and they the eggs.
…
She awoke from this dream to the sound of her parents arriving home from work. She had been sleeping at the kitchen table, head down in her folded arms. Dirty dishes scattered throughout the kitchen – this from preparing dinner for her brothers and sisters earlier that evening.
Her father asked how everything went that night. How she was doing. How her brothers and sisters are. She looked at the mess in the kitchen. The mess on her parents. The weathered wrinkles on their hands and face. And she responded “Amazing!”
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