E fundit!

22:51 TODAY

Businessman Artur Shehu breaks his silence: I am a long-time land owner in Zvërnec, I don't know the investors at all

Albanian businessman Artur Shehu spoke on the Opinion show...

THE HOUSE DOWN THE RIVER…

2024-11-03 09:02:00, Kulturë Agim Xhafka

The flower stayed by the window during those few moments of rest. He leaned his elbows on the ledge, put his face close to the glass and flew with his mind from one tree to another, from a lawn to the forest up there. Her once populous village was reduced to seven smoking houses. Others fled to the city or emigrated anywhere, as far as America and Australia. That land filled with stones, with barren soil, that if you threw three seeds of corn, maybe one would grow, but the ear would then be like Uncle Sani's mouth, could not support them. One tooth raised and three removed.

Lulja finished the eight-year school in the village. He couldn't go any further because the high school down by the river was closed. The switch was put on the students from where they started.

Mother and father were sad. Lulja was their only daughter and they hoped at least to become a nurse or midwife for the village. But he didn't say it. Therefore, for two or three years, they stayed by his side, caressing and comforting him that such a fate befell him.

When the people of the village fell like a raging stream in the plains below, they almost fell to Lule's family as well. They dreamed that they were comfortable by the sea, they saw themselves happy among the waves and the joy of the people on those sides. Then they dared to tell themselves that Lulja would become a doctor, father would start working in a spruce nursery where he was an agronomist, mother would sit at the checkout of a supermarket... And so they weaved the fabric of future plans. They prepared the dishes, the clothes, the pictures and... the last week Lule's mother suffers a cerebral hemorrhage. He loses his left hand and leg, loses his words. I can't get them out. It breathes air, anger, sadness, boredom, pain, horror, nightmare, fear and eyes...ah, it opens its eyes so much that it seems as if it will swallow the whole house. That neglected letter from which they thought they would start the flight.

The thing turned their world upside down. So they decided to run away as soon as possible. Now they had to be near a hospital, or at least an ambulance. But life has its own accounts. Nowhere could the mother be taken unless a house was first found, at least a room arranged because the sick person is like a child. It will be as delicate as a glass in your hand. In the first days, the drama took money from the whole family trio. Lulja and father were crying. Tears for the mother, but also tears for their black fate. Next to them was Resuli, their neighbor. He had worked as a teacher, he had also taught Lula, and now he was unemployed. He did not receive a pension until he turned 50. He had set up some 20 beehives and with their honey he pushed the year forward. The two boys had fled to Greece for several years. They helped him and he felt like the bey of the village, as the saying goes. He led a normal life in the abnormality of that area. Finally, he became a grandfather and Lena, his wife, lived more in Greece than in the village. Resul's sons proposed to Lula's father, when they came to the village for two days, to go with them and work. Since they were engaged in agriculture, they thought that an agronomist like him would be valuable to Afendikoi.

Even Lulja thought this was a good find. They needed money. Not only for medicine, but also for food and clothing.

One morning the father kissed his wife and the daughter ran away like in the legends Lulja learned at school. It was spring and I didn't feel so much pain, loneliness. Then came summer with warmth and work. The father was gone for a week while only the sick mother and Lulja were delaying the winter. Even the neighbor was alone. The woman raised her grandchildren. There were already two.

One morning he was chopping wood and when he let go of the ax with force he let out a loud sigh. This exclamation made Mornica Lule's chest. It felt like someone was whipping him, but not hard enough to hurt him. Then he reached out to the window and was seeing the whole torso of Resul. Wow, nice muscles, what shoulders, how hairy... For the first time since that night I had concrete dreams of driving, with bodies rolling, entangling and exchanging sweat. I woke up scared. It seemed to him that the mother was leaning and was about to fall. He rushed over and comforted her. Then his head went to the neighbor's house. There was light, he said to himself. Are you reading or thinking? He lay down and wiped away his sleeping sins.

From that day on, he found reasons to go to Rasul, to talk with him, to stay for a long time. Supposedly he was interested in the bees once, allegedly asked the next time about the boys and as if he wanted to know what the weather would be like tomorrow. Of course, he cared about his mother, every service was performed for him. He even read books, lots of books. But her eyes were dull and as if conveying a request, let me go up there, don't keep me tied to the ground.

One day, when Resuli was teaching Lula how to collect honey from the beehive, Lulja grabbed his hand and as if invited him into a greater closeness. The drive began to dance around them. It was clouding them like the smell of alcohol at the mouth of a brandy still. The flower was caught by a hot afsh, and when it was about to fall towards the arms of Resul, he got tangled in a branch that fell to the ground. He immediately sat down, gathered it in his fists and ran away towards his house. Dumbbell flower, left a statue on the lawn above the house. He did not come out for several days. Until one morning he was seen changing some tiles on the roof. Lulja was about to run there, when she saw a silhouette from the monopath below. It was clearly getting bigger. It was the father. He threw on a T-shirt and started running, but the father met Resul first. They entered his house and left after an hour. The girl's heart was beating fast. Fear filled his body. If the Prophet had told her about her excesses, I should not have behaved as worthless, I should not have restrained my feelings. Full of shocks of age they perverted him. He could not balance himself. His physique was fiery, life required him to be cold. Even flowers bloom between stones when the moment comes, he reasoned. They do not cut the field, the lawn, or the fertile soil. He was being swallowed by his troubles when his father ran to his wife's room, kissed her, cried for a few moments and said:

- Flowers, let's talk a little from the other room!

The oyster went off. Zvarra took off his legs and sat down on the chair at the end, near the balcony. Be ready, he thought.

- I talked to Resul about you, - he started with his eyes on the ground.

The flower hardened. But he didn't utter a word as the father continued:

- Have you been to his house several times?

- Yes...

-He also taught you how to gather honey.

- Yes.

-He was very worried about you. That he loves you very much for years and years...

- What? - he let out a cry.

- Yes, yes. Even when you were at school, he told me that he loved you very much. But there is concern that alone, filikak, without your age in the village you can go through difficult moments. He judges like a parent, like your teacher, so he gave me some advice. We are lucky to have him as a neighbor. Lucky when you have wise people around.

The flower breathed lightly, but deeply, and almost shouted, long live, good man.

The father approached the girl and hugged her tightly and long. The flower smelled his scent, the smell she had of her own skin.

- The three of us will go to Greece, - he promised. - I found a house and a job for you. You will help us in the nursery. You didn't become a doctor for people, but you are becoming a doctor for plants. And there are plenty of your peers there. There is youth, you understand, youth!

He mentioned the word youth twice, as if revealing the conversation he had with Resul. He blushed, felt ashamed, but his father approached him and said:

- We should have left before. This place has only memories, it does not give us life, love, continuity...

After a week the three mules started down the river. Rasul accompanied them to the bridge. Then when they got into the car, he congratulated Lule:

- Bloom where you are going!.

He got on the mule and started climbing the mountain. The car danced through the valley. She looked happy, as if she also understood that she was traveling abroad... The flower like a flower released from the bud. Waiting for sunny days.../ CNA