In the village where Juan was born, people have a saying: “he who gets burnt with milk cries at seeing the cow”. Strangely, this seemed not to be the case for Juan, quite literally. See, the story I'm about to tell is a strange one — but is it so strange after all?
Juan was a portly young student at Rupert, the big city half a day away from Edward, and the closest place to study medicine. His parents were uneducated and didn’t have much more than a small house and some land that they planted, but everyone knew them as good people. The villagers knew him the way they knew everyone else, that is, as the son of his parents. At school, however, everyone recognized him for a different reason.
His left hand, right at the top, had something like a whole, which caused him a great deal of pain. He had always been clumsy. One day, a few years ago, he was heating milk to have his breakfast, and as he grabbed the pot to pour the milk into his cup, he spilled the milk into his hand. He got severely burnt and had to wear bandage for a few weeks, and so he vowed to not drink milk anymore. However, as soon as he got his bandage out, he one day woke up and decided he wanted hot milk with his breakfast, but his clumsiness hadn’t left him with the bandage and so again he got burnt. This time the hand seemed to look less bad, but it was mostly because it already looked bad to begin with.
When he finally took his second bandage out, and impressed by the scars, Juan vowed to never do that again.
Some days later, Juan woke up craving some hot milk, so, moved by the powerful energy that pushes those who think have learned a lesson, he heated some milk and again got burnt. This time it barely hurt, since there were a lot of scars, and so he didn’t pay much attention other than vowing to never again do it. The fine reader of this tale can herself imagine the rest of occasions this happened, until his hand looked so ugly as to make him school-famous.
I may be a poor storyteller if I am portraying Juan as perhaps not very smart, for there is nothing farther from the truth. He was very capable, well-liked by his professors and classmates. It is true, though, that he did suffer a great deal in school: he was always rushing to finish his homework. This had started when he was very young. In elementary school, he had to submit drawings on Mondays at noon, and he couldn’t help himself but waste time until the very few hours left, where he would rush to find a piece of paper and a pencil and a ruler.
This caused him a great deal of stress and so he always vowed to never do it again.
But enough with the milk and the school, because the most interesting thing about Juan happened about Rada, his girlfriend. She was a pretty woman a year younger than him, and she was always running around doing things like going to the theater, or to the park, or going to dinner at this or that place. Juan didn’t have time to join her at many of these events, due to him being busy taking care of his burnt hand or in a huge rush finishing his homework. They would argue over it, and Juan would vow to never again pour hot milk or forget his work, and so they would live together happily for a few days. Soon Juan would not be able to join Rada for dinner with her friends, since he had to finish an important assignment he had forgotten to work on, and so they would argue again.
One evening Rada went to Juan’s, and they again argued over this and went to bed angry at each other. The next morning, Juan woke up some time earlier than Rada and stayed in bed, engulfed in thoughts. By the time she woke up, Juan had already made his mind about her never changing, and so he broke up with her right there.
Closing the door after her with his right hand, and with a sad expression in his face, he decided to quickly have some hot milk with his breakfast, before rushing to finish his assignment due in a few hours.