Episode 1
***
The hot summer air makes my eyesight fuzzy, Lisbon city center floats a bit, blurring outlines of vivid and colorful buildings surrounding me. Still through the yellow heat I spot the tiny bakery at the corner with flashy sign and blinding variety of sweets on display. Would I ever be able to go past indifferently? Getting closer I press my nose to the glass like a curious child, and examine the pastry. Pasteis de nata, a childhood friend said. Try it, it is good and very local, you will get the feel of how the Portuguese dessert tastes. The bakery offers a deal: 6 for 5 euros, but I buy only a single one. My mind quickly runs the habitual test question: is there anyone around you need to share it with?
- Wanna share? - Oana shakes her head in a negative answer and I bite into the crunchy crust. It willingly melts on my tongue into a mildly sweet liquid remotely reminding of lost childhood memory...
***
- So?
The young woman with soft oriental features talked in a calm tired voice. She seemed to be concentrated on opening the apricots freshly picked from the tree and removing the stones. They were sitting in a small terrace in front of the old village house with grey crumbling walls. It was late evening, with the sky breathing the bluemarine into purple red. The mountains were silent.
The girl was about nine years old, with a braid below the waist, button nose and big almond eyes full of life and expectation. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor and staring in an open worn-out book in her skinny hands.
- So, - repeated the woman. - Imagine a situation, where I am no longer there and there is only you and your younger sister left together. Imagine you have a single piece of bread and that is all for several days. How will you share it?
The girl blinked for half a second and blurted out the fairest answer she could think of. - Half and half, - she said in a first-benchers' tone and instantly got a funnily proud face.The woman paused and sighed.
- You have not grown up yet, she murmured with the same tired voice. The verdict transformed into a painful sting and landed on the fragile 9-year-old perception: the girl felt hurt and disappointed. She causiously looked up from under her eyelashes into her mother's tanned face and waited. For the right answer.
- You should take the smaller piece and give her the bigger one. As you are the elder and you can bear hunger, while she is younger and it would be much harder for her...
Episode 2
***
Evening covers Lisbon with the poles of its long velvet skirt. The sun gets swallowed by the ocean somewhere behind the white sketchy buildings. The Portuguese guitar and the street buzz intertwine into a background canvas, a decoration for my live theater. We walk into that light show accidentally, without knowing. It is happening in one of the old squares and it is vibrant: the light effects projected on the buildings tell about magnificent past, careless present and rational promising future. At a certain moment psychedelic imagination pierces a tunnel to the very center of the subconsciousness and I simply let the light into my inner universe - where the dark matter is still the main construction material. I absorb the light. I greedily consume it as this time it is the symbol of life and hope. This time.
***
The mountains hanging over the village had coarse outlines and reminded a group of old wrinkled men. Mornings started with the sun hitting their rocky peaks, evenings softly evolved into nights when the rocky texture molded into uniform black. One could see the solid outlines on the background of the dark blue sky with scattered stars... That day it was different though. There were no stars, but the night village was filled with light spilling from the sky, illuminating mountain peaks. The light show was magnificent, except it wasn't a show. The village nearby was bombed several hours earlier and the only road back to the capital was cut.
There were three adults and six kids in the yard of the grey village house. The adults were carrying basic survival objects to the basement: water, food, clothing, candles and wood. The two younger kids were noisily busy with a very happy something of their own.
The girl with the braid below waist was scared. The feeling pierced her in the chest and settled itself right in the center of it. The chest felt heavy and ice-cold. She never talked, but was silently watching her mother. There was another explosion that echoed in the mountains and the sky bloomed with another swarm of sparkling fireflies. The younger sister raised her curly head to the sky, cried out with joy and pointed it to the young woman:
- It is fireworks, - stated the woman half-smiling.
The braided girl felt her stomach fall. The realization of the lie, that she heard from her mother first time in her short life pulsed with anxiety. The ice-stone in the chest grew to pump the first and strongest fear she would be exposed to in the next 25 years of her life...
***
TBC
***
The hot summer air makes my eyesight fuzzy, Lisbon city center floats a bit, blurring outlines of vivid and colorful buildings surrounding me. Still through the yellow heat I spot the tiny bakery at the corner with flashy sign and blinding variety of sweets on display. Would I ever be able to go past indifferently? Getting closer I press my nose to the glass like a curious child, and examine the pastry. Pasteis de nata, a childhood friend said. Try it, it is good and very local, you will get the feel of how the Portuguese dessert tastes. The bakery offers a deal: 6 for 5 euros, but I buy only a single one. My mind quickly runs the habitual test question: is there anyone around you need to share it with?
- Wanna share? - Oana shakes her head in a negative answer and I bite into the crunchy crust. It willingly melts on my tongue into a mildly sweet liquid remotely reminding of lost childhood memory...
***
- So?
The young woman with soft oriental features talked in a calm tired voice. She seemed to be concentrated on opening the apricots freshly picked from the tree and removing the stones. They were sitting in a small terrace in front of the old village house with grey crumbling walls. It was late evening, with the sky breathing the bluemarine into purple red. The mountains were silent.
The girl was about nine years old, with a braid below the waist, button nose and big almond eyes full of life and expectation. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor and staring in an open worn-out book in her skinny hands.
- So, - repeated the woman. - Imagine a situation, where I am no longer there and there is only you and your younger sister left together. Imagine you have a single piece of bread and that is all for several days. How will you share it?
The girl blinked for half a second and blurted out the fairest answer she could think of. - Half and half, - she said in a first-benchers' tone and instantly got a funnily proud face.The woman paused and sighed.
- You have not grown up yet, she murmured with the same tired voice. The verdict transformed into a painful sting and landed on the fragile 9-year-old perception: the girl felt hurt and disappointed. She causiously looked up from under her eyelashes into her mother's tanned face and waited. For the right answer.
- You should take the smaller piece and give her the bigger one. As you are the elder and you can bear hunger, while she is younger and it would be much harder for her...
Episode 2
***
Evening covers Lisbon with the poles of its long velvet skirt. The sun gets swallowed by the ocean somewhere behind the white sketchy buildings. The Portuguese guitar and the street buzz intertwine into a background canvas, a decoration for my live theater. We walk into that light show accidentally, without knowing. It is happening in one of the old squares and it is vibrant: the light effects projected on the buildings tell about magnificent past, careless present and rational promising future. At a certain moment psychedelic imagination pierces a tunnel to the very center of the subconsciousness and I simply let the light into my inner universe - where the dark matter is still the main construction material. I absorb the light. I greedily consume it as this time it is the symbol of life and hope. This time.
***
The mountains hanging over the village had coarse outlines and reminded a group of old wrinkled men. Mornings started with the sun hitting their rocky peaks, evenings softly evolved into nights when the rocky texture molded into uniform black. One could see the solid outlines on the background of the dark blue sky with scattered stars... That day it was different though. There were no stars, but the night village was filled with light spilling from the sky, illuminating mountain peaks. The light show was magnificent, except it wasn't a show. The village nearby was bombed several hours earlier and the only road back to the capital was cut.
There were three adults and six kids in the yard of the grey village house. The adults were carrying basic survival objects to the basement: water, food, clothing, candles and wood. The two younger kids were noisily busy with a very happy something of their own.
The girl with the braid below waist was scared. The feeling pierced her in the chest and settled itself right in the center of it. The chest felt heavy and ice-cold. She never talked, but was silently watching her mother. There was another explosion that echoed in the mountains and the sky bloomed with another swarm of sparkling fireflies. The younger sister raised her curly head to the sky, cried out with joy and pointed it to the young woman:
- It is fireworks, - stated the woman half-smiling.
The braided girl felt her stomach fall. The realization of the lie, that she heard from her mother first time in her short life pulsed with anxiety. The ice-stone in the chest grew to pump the first and strongest fear she would be exposed to in the next 25 years of her life...
***
TBC
