ULYSSES' RICE

 

ULYSSES' RICE

A voice said from the clouds: "They're going to reject him like a rat, and then the same old thing will start again!"

"Not if we stop it," another voice replied... That Monday morning, Ramiro and Jaime found Ulysses just as he was saying "amen," kneeling, praying beside his bed in the dim light of the room they would share from that day forward. Because from one day to the next, room number 7 of the nine in the "Once Upon a Time" residence was full. It was the only one to be shared. Ramiro and Jaime, two young men who had come from the Altos de Cazucá to look for work in Bogotá, would live there; Carlos, a 45-year-old man who would only be staying there for a few days due to repairs to his house, and Ulises, a social work student. They turned on the light, but seeing Carlos dozing in the other bed, they turned it off. Ulises took it as a good sign: for a split second, it looked like a shooting star. He sat up, said good morning, and went to the kitchen with the colander in his hand. He was asking God in a brief prayer to be freed from the curse that haunted him: bullying. Ulises was thin, 1.60 meters tall, and had suffered bullying in elementary school, high school, and his neighborhood. He was sure he would suffer it at university and in the student residence where he was starting to live to study Social Work. He had come from the coast to live in Bogotá; he had read books, watched videos, and repeated phrases to himself to control the situations. Two forces were fighting for victory, and one was completely dark. His mental state hung by a thread... He prayed, he practiced mind control, he repeated phrases to himself, and he tried to convince himself that his dark night would end, putting all his effort into it. He even went overboard trying to please everyone. Playing hard to get wasn't in his nature.

He returned just as he heard Ramiro say:

"What are we going to eat? There's nothing!"

And Jaime replied: "There's only an egg and a kilo of bread in the box."

"If you want, you can eat rice with me, because I put too much in the pot. The girls told me to put one cup per person, but when I saw there wasn't enough, I kept adding more and more, and finally I put in the whole kilo; the pot's overflowing!"

"No. We have our food," Ramiro replied immediately, curtly and very seriously.

Ulises turned white, turned on his heels, and headed dejectedly to the kitchen.

Carlos, as if from another dimension, immediately turned around and said firmly, "Why did you reject the rice like that?"

"What do I know about that rice?" he replied. "Besides, what's it to you?"

"It matters to me because of the following situation," Carlos replied energetically, sitting down on the bed. "Look, I've been a taxi driver for about 20 years. One morning I was listening to a radio program that has a segment where they give a prompt for people to call in and participate. The prompt was: 'When was someone ever scorned for a noble deed you did?'" A man called and told the following story: "A new neighbor moved into the neighborhood where I lived, and to welcome him, I wanted to give him a basket full of fruit from my yard, because I have about four fruit trees. The neighbor either thought I was gay or a witch doctor, or something, but he confronted me, saying I had no right to do that, that I didn't want his fruit, and he slammed the door in my face. Shortly after, I got a job in Puerto Bahía and left that neighborhood. I don't know why he reacted like that. It was very unpleasant." Since then, all I do is pray to God that I cross paths with that good man again so I can ask for his forgiveness... because that man who slammed the door in his face is me! I was having a bad day, and back then I was more sullen and ill-tempered than you all. And if I remember correctly, that man was also named Ulysses.

At that moment, Ulysses came in, took the salt from his wardrobe, and left. Carlos continued:

“I know where they come from and I know how things are there, and I know it very well because I’m from there, from the Cazucá Highlands. There, if you don’t do something wrong when you go in, you’ll do it when you leave; everyone’s got a knife up their sleeve 24/7. It’s a bit easier now, but it used to be even worse. There, everyone operates on the mental principle of ‘attack is the best defense,’ ‘kill or be killed,’ ‘me first, me second, me third.’ But you should know that there are other people in the world who operate on a different mental principle, like ‘helping others,’ ‘loving and serving.’ When two people from those extremes clash, there’s a short circuit in the system: either one rises or the other falls. I brought that man down, but you’re going to bring Ulises up because you’re going to accept that rice.”

Ramiro and Jaime lowered their gaze, saddened. Their harsh features seemed to soften. Carlos added:

"If life doesn't put you in that precise, pivotal situation it put me in—an incredible synchronicity—you'll never, ever have that click and shift your frequency. You'll never have that realization, 'Wow! There are other kinds of people out there,' that changes your perspective and makes you discover that there are people with a different mindset, who are on a different wavelength, and that you're living in hell, holding a knife up your poncho for nothing, missing out on the paradise that the world can be if you want it to be... if you change. That experience, and others like meeting my wife, plus the movie Pay It Forward, plus hearing Jesus' Sermon on the Mount delivered by a truly inspired pastor, made me shift my frequency. I realized that you don't need to live in a hostile ecosystem full of tigers, sharks, iguanas, crocodiles, hyenas, and magpies; there are much more subtle ecosystems where everyone lives together in peace, where life is of a higher quality. Much less stress, much more pleasure, joy, peace, and brotherhood." Having the experience I had, which changed me, is like a miracle, but you don't need to have it. Just knowing about it can make that click and change your world. You can do it, Ramiro and Jaimito! Both with mischievous names... And all because of that miraculous click He teaches us—the man said, pointing to a cross on the wall, about the Beatitudes—with the golden rule: "Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you." To summarize, He came to change our frequency without changing our location. There's a saying: change your thoughts, change your feelings, change your reality, change your dimension. Carlos's inspiration and eloquence stemmed from missing his family terribly. And that made him hypersensitive.

In a quiet voice, Ramiro said: "It's just that up there on the hill it's all witchcraft... And what does one do if one suspects that the food is cursed?" Because over there it's all just a curse...

"Ah, well, in that case you should respect the alarm and listen to your instinct. All you can do is refuse, but with all the politeness and charm in the world: 'No, thank you, I've already eaten.' If you're protecting the queen, don't surrender the rook. We shouldn't do what I did, or what you did, because we both did the same thing. So I'm not going to judge you. Yes, that's a real problem, but did you see Ulysses? He wouldn't hurt a fly. Let's not kill mosquitoes with chairs!"

Ulysses came in and Ramiro asked him: "Is the rice offer still on?"

"Yes," he replied, "I have enough rice for the whole boarding house."

"Then tell us,

And you, Don Carlos, are you in?" Ramiro said.

"Sure, go ahead!" he replied, and from a cardboard box under his bed he took out two cans and said, "Take these cans of tuna so we can mix them for you."

"Ulysses, take these cans of tuna and stir them up." "Perfect! And we'll provide the eggs and bread," Jaime said.

From the clouds, another voice was heard:

"Where did this damn old man come from?" a voice shouted.

"I'm going to kill him," said another.

"He won't touch him," said a third.

They had Ulises in their sights, preparing him for the final blow, but at the last moment, a miraculous and accidental ray of light rescued him.

"It's a trap."

"Destiny isn't a trap."

"It's a trap."

"Sore loser! If he had faith and his prayer was answered, you're just a sore loser."

Sitting down at the table, Carlos told them that they were painting and remodeling their house, adding another room because his wife was pregnant and they were expecting a girl. Maria, his wife, had gone to stay with her mother-in-law and his children with an uncle, and he had to stay in a residence because of his job as a taxi driver in the city. He would only be there until Friday, but he promised to invite them to a barbecue soon at the rooftop grill of his renovated house.

When talking about the job search, Ulises mentioned he worked at McDonald's and told them they were hiring. Ramiro and Jaime gave him their resumes to submit to the human resources office.

"It would be great to get in," Carlos said. "They say working at McDonald's adds weight to your resume. You're going to have luck. You know why? We're surrounded by good signs. We were all alone, and now the four of us are together. The boarding house is full; only this room was empty, and it filled up in a single day. Ulises's rice multiplied exponentially, and we contributed fish and loaves. And what did Jesus multiply to feed five thousand? Loaves and fishes? Besides, Ulysses is the mythological hero of the Odyssey and of James Joyce. And what did Joyce do?" He used the classical Ulysses as a model to demonstrate that an ordinary man of the 20th century, with his small problems, fears, and everyday virtues, also lives a heroic odyssey every day of his life. You either get crushed or you emerge victorious. And you all come to the capital looking for work, Ulysses is studying, and I'm going to be a father for the third time—and a little girl is coming to the family! Those are our personal odysseys.

“The man’s a poet,” Ramiro remarked.

Ulysses’s eyes welled up with tears; he was deeply moved by Carlos’s words, because the stress he was suffering from the specter of his curse was worse than that of Ulysses in the Odyssey, but a light of hope had been kindled in his dark night with this new friendship.

“A poet is someone who goes around fanning the flames of things,” a poetess from Bogotá once said, “and she spoke the truth,” Carlos affirmed. “I fell in love with my wife when this song was popular,” he added, saying: “When I’m alone with you

You make me feel like I’m home again

When I’m alone with you

You make me feel whole again.”

“It’s by The Cure. And that says it all. It has a melancholic sound, but if you listen to it the way he did, in love, you feel it, and it’s like the perfect, happy beat of your heart. Are you in love?” he asked them.

"From life," said Ramiro.

"From life too," said Jaime.

"From God and from life," replied Ulises.

"So they're in love... and love puts you on a different wavelength. Kindness and love are the golden key that opens all doors," said Carlos, turning on the radio to set the mood with music, missing his wife intensely. Ulises put the rice on the table and asked if he could bless the food. They said of course, and he took the poster from the wall and read them the Beatitudes:

Blessed are:

The poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

The meek: for they will inherit the earth.

Those who mourn: for they will be comforted.

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be filled.

The merciful: for they will receive mercy.

The pure in heart: for they will see God. The peacemakers: for they will be called children of God.

Those persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Amen, the four said. Ulysses served the dishes, and they ate the rice in silence, almost with mystical devotion. They found it not only delicious and nutritious, but like a balm for the soul; ideal for satisfying their thirst for life at the peak of their strength, their hormones, and their power to survive and triumph, because that is possible, and that is what makes the game so exciting.

As soon as Carlos's house was ready, he kept his promise and invited them to a barbecue where they met his very pregnant wife and his sons, Matias and Esteban, all between 18 and 19 years old. With wine, they toasted the good news that both Ramiro and Jaime had gotten jobs at McDonald's, just as Carlos had predicted. When he asked them what their parents did for a living, he had no idea he was about to get the surprise of his life:

"A taxi driver," Matias replied, trying to be funny. "Mine too!" Esteban and Jaime said in unison, and they high-fived.

"They've been colleagues for 20 years," Jaime said.

"My dad works as a bricklayer," Ramiro replied, "he doesn't steal anymore! He's reformed!" he added, laughing... And Ulises said:

"Ulises, my dad, works at the port of Pasacaballos."

Carlos responded emphatically, his eyes wide: "Your dad works at the port and his name is Ulises?"

"Yes," he replied.

"And did he live in Bogotá?"

"Yes, he's from here!"

"Don't you have any pictures of him on your phone?" "Obviously, look, here we are on the night we moved into our new house. I only slept there one night and then I had to come back to Bogotá..." Carlos's eyes filled with tears; his intuition was correct. Ulises was Ulises's father. The man in his unfortunate and bizarre anecdote was the father of his protégé, his roommate.

"Your father deserves my sincerest apologies. You'll understand. And since he's moving into his new house, I'm going to send him my best wishes from Bogotá and a gift... a gift... does he have a yard?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to send him some fruit trees as a gift."

Ramiro and Jaime had already grasped this new twist of fate and were astounded. For now, I want you to know that God hears our prayers. That incredible and wonderful coincidences exist.

"I say this and I'm experiencing the same thing right now." Ulises added, "Being here with you tonight in this great city is irrefutable proof."

Ramiro and Jaime became great friends with Ulises, and with Matias and Esteban, they formed a close-knit group. Their stature gave him a sense of security. This friendship made Ulises forget his curse forever. He also understood that there are other, friendlier, more peaceful worlds, and that one can access them with faith in God.

The power of the divine intervention orchestrated by the angels swept away the schemes prepared by the demons with such force that not one, but four people shifted their perspective, and with a single masterstroke, they went from a hostile ecosystem to a celestial one. All through the power of love, faith, and kindness. Because it is true: "The kingdom is already among you."

END