Paulito’s Last Christmas
Christmas time in Luanda is right in the middle of the rainy season. Nine degrees south of the equator, the air is as hot and humid as a Turkish bath. The temperatures soar to unbearable heights. On that mid-December summer evening they reached 90 degrees.
The light in the small house was on. The night-nurse recognized Paulito immediately.
“You again,” she waved a finger in his face. “I told you that if you won’t take care of this leg, you’d be in serious trouble.”
Paulito was silent as the nurse took the dirty bandages off, revealing a deep, oozing wound. He did not utter a sound when she cleaned and disinfected it. He had the look of an old man when she handed him half a painkiller and a blanket and suggested he spend the night at the clinic.
This story won the first prize in the Chichester Observer Christmas Short Story competition, and was published in the Observer Magazine in December 2007
Paulito’s Last Christmas is now published on hack writers – The International Writers Magazine.