Puiul

Lucian Bgiu, 2015

The vehicle stops on a mountian road, engine still working, lights still on.
Nobody descends. Inside, the man extends his hand to grab his cell phone
and casts his eyes on the message. Lingeringly examinates the words
strung on the screen, then suddenly changes his sight, gazing upon the
snow-landen firs, among them, beyond them and further. The car is warm
and cozy. Outside: unstained, serenity and steadiness. Everything is
wonderful. The man sighs pressed. On the back seat, the child yawns,
stretches out, opens his eyes towards the surrounding light and grins
joyful.

-Baby, mommy is upset that we went skiing.

- But daddy, she did not want to come, did she?

The man does not reply. Thinker, peers to the wintering firs and aught is
hidden in their mistery. After a while he undecided glances towards the cell
phone, towards the rear- view mirror, smiling bitterly. The car starts
moving, the chains of the wheels continue along the mountain road,
leaving behind two parallel traces, alike, that become lost among the pure
and thick trees. They seem limitless. Seem to begin nowhere and go
nowhere.
At one moment, after a bend of the river, in the middle of the road, an
unpredicted creature apprears. Surprised, the man brakes, stops the car
and stares intently at the motionless deer, stunned in an immaculate and
tranquil surrounding, only its heart beating, only a figure and nothing else
on the snowy road and icy river heading towards springs. Among the firs
emerges a hind. Steps unconfidently on the route, stashes behind the
deer, rustling raises its nose then losts itself in the boundless forest. The
deer lays by for a while, curtly shakes its horns and disapprears on the
hind's traces.

- Too bad mommy did not come with us.

The man and the child are skiing together all day long. The slopes are wide
and endless, the snow abundant, the sun is shining, the world, uplifted
and unchained. From up there, everything seems spotless, pure, peaceful
and away. The chairlift goes up relentlessly from the slope to the top of the
mountain. The child and the man cross constanlty the mountainside,
having the same tension and joy with each change of direction, forgetting
for a while that the arriving spot is their beginning. Just to start over. When
the evening comes, nocturnes light up and some first sole blasts appear.
They both put on their headgears, ski googles and go on, untiring, their
journey through such a familiar landcape, but barley glimpsed in this
moment, mystical, ideal. At last, the night comes. And it snows. The
darkness and the snow conceal the trails, the slope, the mountain,
everything.