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Sunday's story/ A star broke and fell on Tirana

2024-01-21 21:50:00, Kulturë Agim Xhafka

Sunday's story/ A star broke and fell on Tirana

Dawn Xhafka

When my nephew asked me at what age I experienced the most stress, I told him:

- When I was about 5 years old.

In order not to leave him too surprised, I continued:

- I remember we went out in Korça to wait for the bus coming from Tirana. Me, grandmother and four-year-old brother, one year younger than me. The mother stayed at home with the sister who had just been born. Father had gone on business in Tirana three days ago, so we were waiting for him. I remember that I couldn't stand it. I had joy, impatience, anxiety. Mixed emotions. He even made me cry. Lo and behold, the bus arrived, the door opened, three men got out and suddenly my handsome, smiling, tall, elegant father appeared. I ran towards him with the same speed I used to run when they let us out of the garden. He opened his arms, grabbed me, plunged me to his chest, and at that moment I got a gasp. I cried and cried and did not rest. So much so that the father was moved to tears at first. He then squeezed me tighter, but after a few seconds he became worried about me.

- What do you have son? - he told me in a voice that trembled with anxiety.

I was speechless at that moment. My syllables did not come out, they were stuck on the fence of the teeth, they did not jump out. Between the tears I saw his face, I rubbed his cheeks and sometimes I cried and sometimes I smiled. Then we headed home. In one hand he was holding his brother, in the other hand I was. Every two steps I kissed his hand and I was probably the happiest in the world. I didn't leave him until my father went to sleep. I kissed her, said good night, turned back, kissed her again. I did this five or six times until the mother spoke almost angrily:

- What time are you going to go to your bed or I'm going to get up and give you a high five! Run with me now before I plow it!

After these words I went straight to sleep. Calm and composed.

I remember this event happened in May. When the sky is so clear you can almost touch the stars, so close they seem. And exactly one star brought me the stress that I am showing. I saw that it fell from the sky and quickly went down.

- Look, look, - I said to my grandmother. - Where will that star that has just been snapped fall? - I asked her.

What she did not know how to specify for me cut the wood short:

- Oh, he falls far, far away from here, son. Fall from there to there, maybe from Tirana, - and stretched his arm towards the horizon in the direction from the top of the mountain of Ostrovica.

The word "Tirana" shocked me, made me shy and fear gripped me from head to toe. What if this star, oh be it far away, falls on the father who is in Tirana, this star falls on his curly hair, on the smile that did not shine on him? This question gave me sleepless nights. Not only that night, but also the next day, until it was time to go to the agency, to wait for the bus that brought my father. The heart raced to and fro, to and fro and did not rest. Like a horse's knock. When I saw my father, I actually believed a little, yes a little at all, that the star might have scratched him, he might have broken a toe, for example. The little finger I thought in half my voice. This was the worst, but not more. That star wouldn't be able to topple my father. That he was a rock. Rock mixed with iron and cement, I told myself. And the word came to me. The falling star had not touched the father at all. I gave him a childish explanation that the star does not make the star fall. So I slept with sweet dreams honey. With white dreams - white that cheered me up like that day when the first snow falls in Korça.