The ghost

In the great mansion of the Ochoa family, all eyes are drawn to the polished wooden coffin in the center of the room. Four large chandeliers flank the coffin, spectrally illuminating the body lying inside.

From morning to afternoon, a long line of employees parade in front of the remains of their former boss, Ramon Ochoa, an outstanding businessman who managed to build a great coffee empire.

Each employee expresses his or her grief. The oldest ones cannot avoid tears rolling down their cheeks, they remember with nostalgia when it all began, when as young boys they loaded sacks in the new coffee shop located in the center of the city... They remember how they climbed up the ranks as the business grew, until they reached executive positions in the great coffee empire... They remember how Don Ramon supported them so that they could progress in the company...

To one side of the coffin there are five people seated who have their thoughts on something else. They are Ramón's children, his heirs, three boys and two girls. None of them was ever interested in knowing the details of their father's business. They all dedicated themselves to living the high life, since they were children they learned to enjoy luxuries and wastefulness. In their minds they only think about how much of their inheritance they will get. They anxiously await the moment when the notary will read the will...

After the burial of the great personage, the notary called a meeting for the following day to open the will. Ochoa's children feel a great expectation...

In the same room where the coffin used to rest, the notary installs a table, on it the envelope containing the will. With delicacy he cuts with a scissors the upper part of the envelope, extracts the document of few pages and begins the reading...

I, Ramón Ochoa, in use of my legal faculties, express my last wishes for the moment when I die: All my estate passes into the hands of the "Ramón Ochoa Foundation". They will have the mission of placing a press advertisement every Monday in a newspaper of national circulation, inviting people to fulfill a challenge. To everyone who spends a week in the mansion, the foundation will guarantee the coffee they need for the rest of their lives. From this moment on, the great Ochoa Mansion will be vacated to receive those brave enough to accept the challenge....This is my last request....

Ramon's children could not believe it, they found themselves in the most absolute poverty. From that moment on they would have to do something unknown to them, work....

From the first Monday of Don Ramon's death, advertisements appeared in the press inviting to the challenge... Soon rumors began to spread... It was said that it was impossible to resist a week in the house, that the mansion was haunted... that the manifestations of the supernatural were so strong that they made people flee with their nerves shattered.

It was Joaquín, my friend, who showed me one of those notices...Look, this is for you, your great opportunity to stop worrying about coffee...with this challenge you can have the coffee you want for the rest of your life...But I must warn you that up to now nobody has managed to overcome it...

Those words awakened my interest. I have never been very brave, but the possibility of having free coffee until the last of my days was too tempting...

The next morning I went to the foundation and signed up for the challenge, an official took me to the doors of the mansion, opened the door and dismissed me, he said that there I would have everything I needed, food, blankets, clothes...

During the first hours I dedicated myself to walk around those wide spaces, everything was fine, but during lunch something unexpected happened, my glass of juice spilled without anyone touching it. I would fill it and it would spill, there was no time to drink it. I was shocked...

I tried to lie down for a while and noises of all kinds began to sound, as if the house was full of people. I plucked up courage, locked myself in a room, and spent the whole night scared to death, with noises of all kinds hammering in my ears...

In the middle of the morning I decided to leave the room, I went to the kitchen. All the way it seemed as if someone was behind me. More than once I looked back and no one was there...I made a coffee and the aroma spread everywhere. As if by magic the noises stopped...

Suddenly I felt a presence nearby, at the front table was the ghost of Don Ramon. Fear left me, and it naturally occurred to me to offer the ghost a coffee... You were right, he told me, the only thing to do was to offer him a coffee...

The rest of the week I spent drinking coffee with that kind ghost. Now I don't worry about coffee anymore, I can drink as much as I want for free...

Thanks for your time...

Images edited in Photoshop.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The photos, the digital edition and the Gifs are of my authorship.

Logo creado por @themanualbot