Hena brenda gjoksit

My grandmother was a minuscule old woman, forever covering her hair with a white head-scarf, the tips of which she always tucked in her grey apron over her black, long dress. She was shrinking. Or we were growing fast. Her somewhat round face was like dough-bread, full of oval lines that gave the impression she was constantly smiling. She smelled like bread too. She had a slow way of walking, almost duck-like, keeping her head straight up, her eyes always exploring the ground she was walking on. But usually, she would sit on the divan outside of the house when the weather was warm and watch us kids play in the front yard. She would cross her legs in a yoga-like position with an amazing ease, and rosary in her hands, would start talking to herself or to the many people that were dead by now, including her husband. Only when the game we were playing would call her attention, she would yell out our names for us to stop it. That is if she remembered our names. She’d start yelling the name of her husband, my grandfather, then the names of all her sons, starting from the oldest, then if she got lucky she’d get our names right. We knew this. We’d keep playing our game, which consisted mainly in who could hang longer from the highest persimmon tree branch, our amusement doubled by this sudden entertainment. Beqirooooooo! Ganiooooo! Meroooooo! Feridoooooo! Pllumoooo! Pause… Saimiroooo! Blerimooooo! Finally…! Her voice would be weak with exhaustion by the time she got us to stop, and we would run up to her and cover her with kisses in her dough cheeks. She’d smile for real then and would put her dry, bony hands on top of our sweaty heads, caressing the unruly hair with great patience.

I’d wake up very early in the morning, when the sky was violet birthing the new day, and I’d walk along the seashore, floating in that peaceful still of nature, pierced now and then by some unseen birds’ songs. The air would be still cool from its embrace with the now retreating night, and the sky would be low and heavy with the coolness of the air, enveloping me and my slow walk just as it was intended to do for thousands of years before my birth. Then I would stop by the old bunkers, old since WWII, half immersed in sand, their grayish-green contours resembling from afar to a motionless, wounded warrior that had fallen on the sand of this bay straight from an ancient legend.

It was there where I kept my fishing gear, tucked in a corner between the concrete walls of the bunkers. The fishing gear was not much altogether, just a line, some hooks and a big glass jar filled with dirt, water and worms that I had dug out from the banks of the nearby river.

I’d stop between the bunkers and then rest my sight upon the vastness of the sea. It was quiet, like the freeze-frame of a perfect flatness, a never-ending mirror where now, I was sure, the sky would look at itself while changing colors and belonging officially to the day. As the sun would rise higher and higher over the bay, animal voices would fill the air with their echoes coming from the forest and the forest itself would become green and serious about it. With its straight pine trees, and filling the bay corner to corner next to the sand, the forest looked like an army of strange beings that had flown over during the night from the other side of the mountain and then had come to a screeching halt right beside the sand, amazed by the sea. All the back trees waited patiently now for their turn to come at the first row and be able to watch.

This was enough for me to get inspired and get the line into the sea. Sometimes I’d just throw the line by hand as far as I could and some mastery was needed for that. I was getting better at it. But in days like this when the sea was flat and oily with sleep, I’d put the line between my teeth and swim with great pleasure as far as the line could go. After dropping the line, I’d turn toward the shore and see far away the shoreline laying there as a white snake, with the bunkers like some big lump at one end of it, as if the snake had just swallowed a small animal. To escape this image, I’d roll on my back and look at the sky instead, floating on the sea water. The sea-water had thinned out as the day settled on it, and filled with an unexplainable joy, I’d start swimming fast toward the shore, ready to catch me some big fish, tasting it already in my mind…

      The front of the massive building is a high, concave empty space with a huge arch for a cap. It makes for a perfect shelter if one wants to hide from the sun, but not so great to avoid rain or wind. I look outside through the glass of the door; I am inside the entrance; outside there is evening, drizzle and wind. I have a ten minute break and I decide to smoke a cigarette. I push the door and get out, feeling right away the drizzle and wind on my face, my hair and clothes. The evening fills me up with its smell and I find a corner to light up and smoke my cigarette. I play with the cigarette smoke, watching the puffs get massacred by wind and rain; when this gets uninteresting I look at the street in front of the building. There is construction going on. This side of the street is opened up; from where I am sitting, I can barely make out the three rectangle holes. I think the street is being massacred too, but the gusts of wind and the rain make it look justifiable. Cars try to squeeze on the free lane of the street; there are too many of them for just one free lane and frustrated honks pierce and massacre the evening air. I smoke my cigarette which is now half gone. I don’t mind the drizzle, but the wind I do mind, even though I admit it is more amusing to watch pieces of paper and garbage go round and about by the force of the wind. I follow with my eyes one of these paper whirlwinds. It goes around in front of me and then hurries to the edge of the building and disappears behind the corner.“ Cock, shit, ugly, shit-face, bloke, cocksucker!” I hear a woman’s voice before I can see her. She comes out of the corner, well-dressed in a white, long, linen jacket, a black skirt which is shorter in one of her hips; a white scarf that covers her breast is tucked inside her jacket, and a wide hat. She uses one hand to hold the hat against the wind, and the other hand to hold her skirt tight at the side of her thigh. She turns around facing the direction she came from and yells again in a monotonous, denouncing voice: “Cock, shit, ugly, shit-face, bloke, cocksucker!” She has the appearance of a Chinese woman in her thirties. I am curious to see whom is she yelling to, but my cigarette is almost finished and so is my break. I stand up and decide to go back to work. Too late! She notices me and comes toward me, now and then releasing the skirt only to grab it tighter around her legs. We make eye contact and she approaches me. She watches me straight in the eye.“Cock, shit, ugly, shit-face, bloke, cocksucker,” she says in the same voice. I remain calm. “What happened,” I ask. She walks a circle in front of me, as if following the wind, stops on my side, faces the street and yells again: “Cock, shit, ugly, shit-face, bloke, cocksucker!” She does this with conviction and as if reading from a teleprompter. Ok, I think, someone escaped the loony bin. But I am curious, even at her lunatic behavior. “So, wanna tell me what happened,” I say in a comforting voice. She stares at me quickly and answers in a somewhat quieter voice: “They are all cock, shit, ugly, shit-face, bloke, cocksucker. Did I say this right,” she asks me. “You said it perfect,” I say “but who is like that?” “There are too many, the world is full of them,” she answers “they all are cock, shit, ugly, shit-face, bloke, cocksucker.”  “They are,” I answer. I light up another cigarette. She looks at me again and says: “They are stealers. That’s what they do, they steal your happiness. Stealers, right,” she asks me while she fixes her gaze at my lips. “Thieves,” I say, without removing the cigarette from my mouth. “Thieves,” she repeats after me excited. “Exactly! They don’t want you to be happiness, they steal it from you and they are all over the world. Cocksuckers,” she says while trying to hold her hat with both hands. Her skirt flies up, I am tempted to look but instead I ask her where she is from. “That’s no importance, ok,” she says and gets a grip on her skirt. “Where I am from has nothing to do with who I am. I am one and no one is like me. I am one-hundred percent and not twenty, thirty percent. You go around the world you will not find one like me: I am…” “Unique,” I interrupt her, now with a bit of impatience because the break has been over for some minutes. “Yes,” she answers and then smiles for the first time. “I am unique, but they are stealers, they don’t want you happiness and they share it with each other,” she adds and then walks away from me, following the paper-wind. Right before she disappears behind the other corner of the building, she yells again: “Cock, shit, ugly, shit-face, bloke, cocksucker!” I follow her with my eyes and I think that her cursing is quite complementary to the garbage wind, construction noises and honks of irate cars passing on the only free lane of the massacred street, bleeding inside the belly of this evening.