SLEEPLESS…

2025-07-06 14:09:00, Kulturë Agim Xhafka

SLEEPLESS…

For a few years I wished my father wouldn't be made a hero. That title was fashionable at the time. I read in the newspapers, I heard on the radio, that we didn't have a television at home yet, that miner so-and-so was working for 2003, that the agricultural brigade in Plasë, Korça was reaching the 2000 targets for wheat yields, that driver x had driven millions of km in his Skoda and was trying to reach 2007. And to think that we were living in the '70s. That's right, I had just started high school.

I didn't understand at all how these people didn't ask anything about the years and lived 20-30 years before us. What did they eat, how did they dress, how did they speak? They were normal questions because I myself thought that they had come down from another planet. Maybe they weren't people, maybe they were like the ones we read about in science books. With spacesuits and antennas on their heads. Because I couldn't find a logical explanation. Amidst these dilemmas, I asked my father one day:

-Oh, how will these heroes work for the next dozen years? Because for them, like for us, the day has 24 hours, the year has 4 seasons...

"Like a kangaroo!" he laughed.

I expected more, but he told me that this kangaroo lives in Australia, it has four legs, but two are long and two are short. So it can't run, but it jumps. And it jumps past everyone. An explanation that didn't stick with me, it didn't tell me anything. But fate brought it that in the next class we had the son of a hero. The driver's Dhimo. Dhimtraq Sharku I thought was his name. He worked for the year 2021. He was the most champion among the heroes. Thanks to Eli, my friend whose son Nestin was a cousin, I met him one day during the big break. There in front of the high school yard.

-What do you mean your father, Dhimo the hero, is working for 2021?

-He works or not! He's had the cabin of his Skoda at home for years and years. He sleeps there, eats there, and washes there. He stops when he's sweating, for example, and cools off with a bottle of water at a rest area.

-Who cooks them?

-But where does he have time to cook, man! He grabs a loaf of bread, one of those big 40-cent pieces, some tomatoes, some cheese and puts it in by himself. In the winter he keeps jars of pickles. His cabin is full. He really likes the ones with cabbage. He also has a radio on his motorcycle and drives ahead with music, songs and news.

-Is he coming home?

-He comes once a month.

-Where do you sleep?

-But where does he have time to sleep, man?! If he sleeps, his years are approaching. He won't work for 2021, for example, but for 2015. But he never does that because he gave his word. Do you understand, oh?!

I was surprised and confused. As much as I wanted to tell him he was joking, he continued:

-Do you know what my father, our hero, does when he falls asleep?

-No.

-He stops the car and before he puts his head on the steering wheel to take a nap, he places the thumb of his right hand between the steering wheel and his head.

"Is that a habit? Does it make you fall asleep easier this way?" I asked.

-No, no. But when he puts his head on his finger, the finger goes numb after half an hour. The numbness wakes him up and that guy starts the car and gives it gas. Because he gave his word that he will work for the year 2021. And the word given is the reason why he lives.

The bell rang at that moment and the conversation was so long. I entered the classroom, but I was not paying attention to the lesson. Dhimo's finger stuck in my mind. His torturing pacifier, I called him. And inside I asked myself, why did society have to create such heroes? Why did some hardworking people who were tortured like in fascism have to be an inspiration? Why shouldn't his family have its leader within its bosom? Why shouldn't the hero's son grow up with his parent by his side, with his love and care? Why...

From that day on, I stopped reading newspapers. Because on every page there were portraits of tired, exhausted people. Portraits of heroes who inspired the people, but terrified me. Because the thumb of my right palm came to mind and hit me like a hammer. I prayed to God that they would never plan my father, make him a hero. Let him be left as he was. Because every day after work he would come home smiling, make us laugh, and sleep for 8 hours straight without stopping, snoring so loudly that Vasil, the neighbor, would occasionally punch the common wall.

"Lower your voice, you bastard, you've done worse to us than Razo's rooster," you tell him.

And the father would rest for only two minutes. Then he would go to bed. Since he didn't have an alarm clock on his thumb, he would rest it under the pillow filled with goose feathers./ CNA