Sometimes they live in our heads, other times in our fears, our sadness, or our doubts. But courage also exists
14ymedio, Milton Chanes, Berlin, 2 October 2025
Once upon a time, there was a nine-year-old boy named Aaron. He was quick, funny, full of ideas and energy. He loved running through parks, laughing with his friends, and above all, being the goalkeeper for his city’s soccer team. When he put on his gloves, he felt he could stop the whole world with his hands.
One afternoon, after a long day on the field, Aaron raised his arms to celebrate victory. The sun was setting and his teammates embraced him, but then a thin line of blood began to slide down his nose. At first, it seemed like nothing—just a simple nosebleed.
They took him to the emergency doctor. She looked at him, examined his nose, and, almost smiling, said:
—“It’s nothing serious. Just part of his age, the result of exertion.”
But Aaron’s father wasn’t reassured. He had seen that look in his son’s eyes: eyes that spoke louder than a thousand words, eyes that refused to accept the easy explanation.
—“Dad,” Aaron whispered softly, “I think it’s the monster.”
It wasn’t the first time he had mentioned it. Since he was little, he had felt that an invisible monster lived inside his head. No one else could see it, but he could hear it, feel it. A shadow that sometimes pushed his thoughts and made him feel different.
When he was even younger, he had already fought against it. A silent battle that had ended in a partial victory: the monster had been defeated. But Aaron knew that monsters, like shadows in the night, always find a way to return.
His father insisted. He demanded tests. And after days of waiting, they finally got a CT scan. The screen revealed what Aaron had already announced with the innocence of children who know how to look beyond the obvious: there it was, hidden just a few millimeters from his brain.
The monster
It had no eyes and no teeth, but it was real. A dark mass, crouched in the most delicate place of all.
—“See? I told you,” Aaron whispered, with a mixture of fear and certainty.
The First Battle
Everything happened quickly. Difficult words, white coats, hallways that smelled of alcohol and fear. The doctors scheduled the first operation. The monster had to be faced as soon as possible.
The operating room became the dark cave where the first battle was fought. For hours, the surgeons struggled with their shining tools—cutting, extracting, trying not to harm the treasures hidden all around: memory, dreams, the words Aaron still had to say.
At the end of that first fight, 70% of the monster had been vanquished. A partial victory, like the first time.
—“We’ve weakened it, but it’s not enough,” the doctors explained. “Its roots are in very delicate places. We need a second operation, even more precise.”
His father nodded, but Aaron already knew. The monster wouldn’t leave so easily.
The Transfer
They went to another hospital, where a specialized team knew better the secret map of the brain. There, among machines that seemed to come from another world, they prepared for the second intervention.
Aaron listened in silence while the adults spoke. He wasn’t afraid. He had been a goalkeeper too many times. He knew what it was like to face an impossible shot and still throw himself at it with his whole body.<
Before going in, they asked him if he wanted to say something. Aaron smiled:
—“When I win, I want you to bring me ice cream. Chocolate and dulce de leche.”
The Second Battle
The operating room lit up. Outside, the family waited with suspended hearts. Inside, the surgeons fought like knights against a hidden beast.
There was a moment when the battle almost seemed lost. Aaron’s heart stopped. For endless seconds, he crossed the border where angels dwell.
They say he found there an immense clarity, a place without pain, where everything was calm. And that the little angels, curious, asked him:
—“Do you want to stay?”
Aaron looked at them and, with the mischief of a boy who refuses to lose a match, replied:
—“Not yet. It must be beautiful up here, but down there my ice cream and my games are waiting. You’ve got all eternity to play. I don’t. Not yet.”
The monitor beeped again. His heart resumed its rhythm. The doctors continued, more determined than ever. And in the end, they succeeded. The monster was eradicated.
The Return
Days later, Aaron opened his eyes. His parents cried with relief. The boy looked at them and said, in a weak but steady voice:
—“It’s done. The monster surrendered.”
Since then, he walks lightly, as if he had left behind a very heavy shadow. He feels invincible—not because he doesn’t know pain, but because he faced it and returned from where few ever do.
He keeps laughing, keeps inventing stories, keeps stopping impossible goals. But now there is a different glow in his eyes: the certainty that life is a gift, and that every minute counts as if it were eternal.
The Lesson
The monster was real, but even more real was the strength with which Aaron confronted it. And so, his story became a fable for all who hear it:
Monsters exist. Sometimes they live in our heads, other times in our fears, our sadness, or our doubts. But courage also exists, and laughter, and love—the forces that weaken them.
Little Aaron taught us that even in the deepest darkness there is a way out; that death can brush against us and still choose us to return; and that life, no matter how fragile it seems, becomes eternity when we live it with gratitude.
Moral:
Monsters may come back, but so do victories. And when someone returns from the edge of death, they are no longer the same: they become proof that every instant of life is a gift, and that even the angels know how to wait—because a child’s laughter on earth is more powerful than any eternity.
Translated by the author