Christmas was coming, Πρωτοχρονιά.
Children's and all adult children's holidays.
But this year's festivities carried an unbearable sadness and a hidden one
hope for a better tomorrow.
Harsh threatening winter around us.
Tired and scared people, besieged in body and soul.
Pandemic of threats, losses, statistics.
The lights of the decorated streets
they struggled to beautify our gray days.
From midnight it began to snow, thick white flakes falling from above
across the state like ghostly silent exclamations.
The morning came frozen, white, bright, a hymn to white.
The State with decorated windows and lighted balconies, snowy courtyards
and squares, white sculptured trees, bushes, and deep invisible wounds.
¨Where should I go in this weather?¨he wondered, looking out the window
the all-white silence that gently fell on the streets and in life.
So he decided to stay inside. Be alone once more as it were
the last years of his life, but they were at least warm and familiar.
It wasn't the cold, nor the unknown that scared him.
This old inexplicable boldness of his deeply rooted in his childhood world
it stretched its branches up to his adult self.
He opened a beer, sat down in grandpa's old worn armchair
and lit the first cigarette of the day. He put on his favorite music
in the stereo, got a book from the library – favorite
his book – and got lost somewhere between the beers, the cigarettes, the poetry
and in music as loneliness once more tenderly wooed
with his still life.
The phone rang, she didn't answer, it was an annoying noise inside her
sweet dizziness of his gray life.
His memory, like a good fairy, took him by the hand and began to take him on a journey
in the past back, running, where time was lost, where everything was
a purity, an alien smell, an old indestructible innocence.
When a child buried in the snow of his childish immensity
he was struggling with his frozen hands to make a snowman.
Two small wooden crimson hands struggled to stand on the road
a beautiful smiling snowman with two walnuts for eyes and three twigs,
two for hands and one for a nose, but he was naked, so naked
who dressed him in his clothes, put a cap and a scarf on him
and when he finished he sat opposite. He was watching him and started laughing.
They thought his clothes were so funny and out of place on the big guy
his white friend and they both started laughing loudly and shakily.
Warm tender laughter in the heart of a frozen wild winter.
They started talking about bright summers, about evenings they wrote
the most beautiful words in hearts, for the sea that painted blue
the dreams of children, of the night that planted stars in the darkness,
for the spring that flooded the days with colors and smells
of people, for the sky that lovingly cared for what it covered
with his infinite light, for the love that was hidden deep
looks, in broken hearts, in broken homes, spoke of hope
that nursed the world, for the injustice and the evil that spread like an epidemic
in all the states, in all the neighborhoods and they burned the innocent like a black sun
souls, broken lives.
They talked about these and more until a sweet weariness embraced him,
he looked once more at his snowman with painted joy and her
love in his eyes, kissed him and said good night.
After a cold moonless night without being able to sleep well
worrying about his huge white friend dawn arrived.
He ran to the door and the sight he saw was tragic and sad.
He was still there but without arms, without a nose, muddy, broken down.
He was crying incessantly not for his wet clothes and dirty cap
-that was the least – but for the countless little wounds that were slowly melting away
and mute his beloved friend.
But what shocked him the most were his eyes.
It was empty, they didn't exist. Two small white moons slowly fading
tearfully, he seemed to glow for a moment before his own
be flooded with tears.
She cried a lot that day and the next, and many more days followed.
The years were running, time was running like an unruly ship, he was also running
passing through the seasons, the decades, changing ages, many have passed
winters and summers, all that was lost, grew up, the journey long, hard,
enchanting, unique.
And today mature now with gray hair, tired, surrendered among you
books, old furniture, musical tunes, to be lost in the uncharted
lonely roads and glorious defeats.
On the street, the children of his neighborhood had come out and were playing in the snow,
he went out into the yard and as he observed them, their laughter, their exclamations,
an unexpected strange feeling filled his soul with warmth.
Loneliness sweetened, depression shuddered, his boldness receded,
his look sparkling, alienated, invincible.
A thought suddenly flashed in his mind like a firecracker and he started to laugh
loud and non-stop. A deep forgotten laugh was heard in all the rooms,
all the way out.
The children, the snow, the winter, his loved ones Holidays he was there too
they waved waving like a flag the unforgettable, the innocent, the tender child, the
hidden deep within him from the ravages of time.
He put out the cigarette, put on his coat, took his cap, a scarf,
he went to the kitchen, opened the jar of walnuts, put two in his pockets,
he cut three small branches from the bare walnut tree in his yard and went outside.
"It's never too late," he whispered.
photo orchidart, Image license by freepik.com
