I rest. I don’t exist in such seasons. In the summer, everything stops. I escape, and I’m grateful for it. The sun does no favors to anyone, and the heat prefers to suffocate you silently, as the sea calls you in whispers. The south caresses flesh and mountains, a lazy lethargy on the hottest days. I am half asleep and a little refreshed. The temperature warns dangerously that when you close your eyes, you leave.
I prefer to dip my feet in the water, without walking the route. I like to lick an ice cream, rather than lock myself in claustrophobic rooms. I prefer something else in my summers. Everything supposedly stops, but there is work, with no choice on the horizon. A slave in a country that depends on summers, I see them through the window while I barely pass them by. Usually, everything should stop at that time, just like everything stops when I sleep. Normally, I should live these days, because in the summer the children play.
The heat stops work, school, meaningless obligations, and winter nightmares. I find a strange excuse, and I avoid friends and supposed acquaintances. I’m going to the beach… I’m on an island. I have no signal where I am, I say.
I’m away. I went to China with a guy. I turn off my cell phone, using mountains and coasts as an excuse. I disappear, going unnoticed on some beach. Lies, truths, I don’t want to talk. I don’t have time for you, only for me. So, they stopped calling, they stopped bothering me, and everything stopped.
Then I grab something, driven by boredom, and I like it, and I continue. I cut myself off from reasons and causes that distract me unnecessarily. I listen to an orchestra without ending the notes. Images come to life in the imagination, and I write them. Without breaks. Without nonsense. I do what I like, without excuses. I don’t criticize what I choose, I don’t let them. Like in the old days, when there was no way to find me and block my freedom. Yes, freedom. Like in the old days, do you remember?
There are days like these when I want to shut everything down.
I want to forget that you exist, that something is happening. I want to erase those things that happened before. You do not affect life, and I do not allow anyone to enter. I forget everything else—those summers of loneliness, separate me from everything else.
An overcharged society, an overloaded network as a guide, and a screen as protection. You forget rivers, paths, and roads, and you pass by without looking at real life: seas, inner sorrows, and people without end. You forget the truth, with the lies of the moment. The scene of the outside world was lost, and you turned to “made-up” windows. You did not understand the hours you lost, only one single longing to be noticed, a fake heart to appear in some photos. That “window” is reality until you die from too much electricity. Only the inside world of a virtual trap is real for you, safe, and eternal.
I’m not exaggerating, I’m not wrong. Maybe I’m just being harsh, but I’ve learned to get through the summers without you bothering me.
Created by Diana Chemeris
Story in Greek: https://fairytalesmaybereal.blogspot.com/2017/08/blog-post.html
Diana Chem 