Sunday's story/ At the corner of the palace

2024-06-16 16:38:00, Kulturë Agim Xhafka

Sunday's story/ At the corner of the palace

Journalist Agim Xhafka, photo taken from his social networks

Man cries many times in his life. From pain, from losses, from accidents, from disappointments. Even from unlucky love, as he cries from great joys, surprises, fear, anxiety. But the biggest tear comes from shame. A big, heavy tear slips, wet to its core. Soaked tears, made into porridge, tears to be squeezed.

I lived through a sob of this kind many, many years ago. It has left such a mark on me that I don't believe that when I die, that shame, that stain will be removed.

The scene begins on a winter's afternoon, one of those cold days when the ground becomes concrete with frost and the clouds are so gloomy that they make the twilight seem blacker. I was coming back from a friend's birthday. Normally we were happy there, we had danced like graduates and on the way back, when I approach the corner of the palace, I see a cart with firewood unloaded just before our entrance. I pray to God that they did not belong to my family because in that cold I also needed this ice. But no, I was unlucky. I saw that my father came out from the stairs of the palace with a bag in his hand. He filled it and threw it on his back. It was understood that the heavy sack nearly knocked the 40-year-old man to the ground. I took a few steps before and then fap... I collapsed. I entered the corner of the palace again. I decided to stay there until my father took them all upstairs. Meanwhile, I was counting the routes he took with the sack on his back.

- 5, 6... 12, 13... 18.

The cold swallowed me. I was kissing to warm up a little. I began to shake like before a wild flu. Darkness meanwhile covered everything. Except a dim lamp in the yard showed the silhouette of the father. He looked like a pencil drawing of Goja. A man bent over by a heavy sack. After almost an hour there was no more wood grain in the yard. The father was probably upstairs in the apartment at that moment putting the wood he picked up in a row. I sat down and ran up a little. Apparently happy since his birthday. Even whistling. My mother opened the door and in the corridor I see a pile of cut wood. My father would take them and put them in the warehouse.

I couldn't say, oh why didn't you wait for me, oh I was on my birthday and I hadn't gone to Tirana, oh you annoyed me that you behave like that because you get a little tired at work, but you also needed to climb the trees, because... But the father intervened cut off my heroic speech. He said to his mother:

- O woman, give the boy a hot tea because he will take our plevit. He sat there at the corner of the building for two full hours, looking at me and counting the bags I was throwing on my back.

I was stunned, I didn't know what to say! That tear, heavy as lead, came to my eyes. That would fall to the floor and make as much noise as if a pot full of hot food had escaped from your hand. A sore throat. Not that I lied, but that I willingly threw it at my father, I left him without help who never, yes never thought of himself in front of me. I received a series of sacrifices, cares, kisses, hugs, his anxieties for my health and life. Everything seemed out of balance. I had broken it, I had screwed the shaft.

The mother realized right away that nothing was going to be fixed. He put me in the room and I didn't come out until one day my father came in laughing. Told me:

- When the other trees come next year, you are doomed. To glue and stack them yourself, without help.

This punishment was like an outstretched hand. He never reminded me, I never forgot the shame. I can feel the blush even now, while it seems to me that my father is laughing from up there. I tell him, I won't repeat it, it's like a joke, but in fact, such a blunder never happened between the two of us. Never. Once was enough to condemn myself forever.

And when my brother tells me:

- Well, why do you show this mistake time and time again? Do you understand that your behavior is not a medal?

I don't give much explanation. But I clarify with the question:

- Do you take medicine for your blood pressure?

- Yes.

- How Long?

- The doctor recommended me for life.

- So is my mistake. It's like a disease. When I tell it, it looks like I'm drinking those white pills of yours. This confession is healing, it is repentance, but also a lesson.