Even the Sky

A Memoir Preview for Paid Subscribers

As some of you may know, I had been working on a memoir for a long time now. It’s finished, or at least as finished as it can be. No writer is ever truly finished with their work, but at some point you have to stop and be okay with what you created. I have been sending the manuscript to several agents/publishers, so wish me luck.

I haven’t shared much with my paying subscribers in a while, so here’s a chapter from my memoir, Even the Sky.

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THE COUNTRY HAD reached a boiling point. Even my friends at school would openly talk about the situation in their houses. Still, no one would say whether or not they were planning to leave, but they would share the jokes and the anti-Castro sentiments they would hear at home. This was becoming more common, even among the friends in my building, who for years had been silent about these matters.

All of this became clearer when we were invited to a rooftop party. A friend of my uncle’s was having a goodbye party. Their family had gotten visas and were leaving Cuba in a few days time. They were doing what no one else was doing, openly broadcasting that they were emigrating. This was dangerous and uncommon and probably because of that, the night felt electric. We went up to the apartment, which then connected to a staircase that led to the rooftop. There were dozens of people there. A mixture of happiness and tears could be seen in those gathered. Surely they were happy for the family about to leave, while at the same time hoping that it would be their turn. The family that was leaving Cuba almost looked foreign to me, as if they had achieved a level of enlightenment. They had this aura around them. They felt special, lucky, and they were. Havana was becoming uninhabitable.