I’ve been traveling from so far away to get here. A silence has fallen. However, it is an unusual quietness. I’ve seen a covey of people at every six or seven clouds. I’m really missing them, together with their permanent buzzing and their poetry, which sometimes includes me in its lyric. Now I have a strange feeling. Are they frightened, upset, or have they quarreled? A lot of them wear uniforms. They are walking on the streets in groups, and, from time to time, they interrogate an older person who doesn’t seem to me have done anything wrong.
I suddenly decide not to watch, not to hide behind my vegetal inner wall. I take on the first familiar street, and I look through a window. There he is! The running boy with who I used to compete in the morning is now in his room. I see him running inside without getting anywhere. He’s alone, and I can feel his neurotic mood while he’s watching the news, but I can’t understand its meaning. He’s totally absorbed, so he doesn’t notice me. On the next street, some trees further down, and at another window, there is the lady with the twins. I’ve known them since they were born. It seems they’ve grown a lot. The three of them are in the kitchen, just putting some muffins in the oven. They look happy, though the lady is a little tense. I wonder where the father is. Oh, there he is! He’s entering the kitchen wearing a suit, but a strange sea-colored material is covering his face. At the next window, my dear teenager is living. Hm, she’s crying. She’s lying crouched in the bed. The same purity in her eyes, but she’s suffering. She’s murmuring something facing the screen; it seems she’s talking to a man whom she’s missing badly. I wonder why doesn’t she get out to see him. She used to walk with her lover in the park every evening, and the long tree branches were hiding their kisses. Next door, the young woman painting the walls is sitting in her house too, working on a canvas. She’s painting an abstract wretched and dull landscape. She doesn’t seem in a good mood at all.
I finally get to my best friend’s window. He’s a grey-haired short little man with whom I often used to talk. We even had picnics, though he never ate anything. He’s a quiet man that I always think about. But his house is empty. At least, as far as I see through the window, there’s nobody inside, and the room looks very untidy. Where can he possibly be? I begin to worry. He’s not on the street either. I’m leaving frightened. The leaves are creating constellations in this Universe. If only I could ask them what’s going on. Why is everything so strange? And I’m beginning to scream on the streets where nobody hears me, and nobody sees me. Then I stop. I’m taking wing, and I’m looking for a place to nest. I’m Cettia Cetti. I have a warrior name, but I’m feeling powerless. I’m a little dunnock bird, and all I wish for is life to return to normal again. Meanwhile, I will earnestly wait in my nest, letting all the feelings fly away just like a group of birds without direction or destination.
This writing was awarded by Kid House Production, in the short-story competition - Coronalisation. Patricia Cirtog -writer, and winner of the contest; Ann Marie Scanlan - editor