Dream of a boy

"When he was a small child, Lucas charged around the house like a lion. He roared, jumped out from behind the couch, slapped his tiny lion paws down on the table, and scared his baby sister. “Stop that!” his mother yelled, tugging his shirt hard. “You are not a lion. You are a little boy! Start acting like one!” Because he was not actually a lion, he thought maybe he could be a superhero. “But what do you really want to be?” his grandfather asked him one day as he slipped a dish of ice cream across the kitchen table. He wanted to be a police officer – or maybe a soldier or a firefighter. He wanted to be something big and strong, like a lion. When Lucas was starting high school, his teachers said he was good at math. They said he should take advanced math classes. So he did, even though he didn’t really like math. 

When he graduated from college, he told his father, “I want to travel. I want to see Africa.” His father did not make eye contact. He said, “You’re good at math. You could make a lot of money. Maybe you can be an engineer. Or do something in finance, say, be an investment banker.” So Lucas became an investment banker. He did not travel. He did not see Africa. He fell in love and was thinking about having a family. “I’ll travel later,” he thought. And so he was an investment banker, and he tried hard to enjoy it. He got married. His family grew. The years passed by. It was a good life, but he did not travel. He did not see Africa. 

Soon Lucas wasn’t an investment banker anymore, but a retired investment banker with nothing to do. To make matters worse, he was a retired investment banker who forgot things. He forgot to turn off the oven, to bring in the mail, to take his medicine. Then he started forgetting more important things, like what his children did for a living and what his grandchildren’s names were, and how many he had. He no longer acknowledged his neighbors – he had forgotten their names, too. And he forgot that he had once thought about venturing to Africa. 

Then one afternoon when he had gone outside for a walk, Lucas looked up at the sky and forgot what his mother had told him. He forgot he was not a lion. He made his way toward a spot in the warm sun and lay down. He stretched out his big lion paws and felt a light breeze in his mane. He blinked his large lion eyes. A puffy white cloud was slowly making its way across the sky. He watched it until it had evaporated in the warm African air". 

-www.cambridgelms.org. De un curso de ingles online.