Fade in.
The classical freeze-frame: the main character, wearing boots, a skater winter jacket is alone in a cemetery, on a Saturday afternoon at dusk, with the snow falling down, the ground muddy and the dogs howling someplace in the distance. She is trying to get her car to start, hood open, frozen fingers clutching a 10-key.
The classical freeze-frame: the main character, wearing boots, a skater winter jacket is alone in a cemetery, on a Saturday afternoon at dusk, with the snow falling down, the ground muddy and the dogs howling someplace in the distance. She is trying to get her car to start, hood open, frozen fingers clutching a 10-key.
”This is me now, you probably wonder how I got here.”
This is
either the beginning of a horror movie or of a very demented comedy. Choose the
latter.
My week
started slow, with a cold and lots of work, continued with exciting discussions on business intelligence
with Qlik, innovation and the new Innoteque, blockchain and the BLOCKS project.
Thursday
was the turning point. All morning at work, lots of meetings, new projects, the
usual suspects stealing ideas. Nothing new. The day was supposed to wrap up rather
quickly, around 3-ish. It dragged into
the evening, pleasantly, with conversations about OUG 114 (do not Google that, you will get annoyed) and the lack of
morality in the current global society. I got home, the cold still raging, got
ready for bed. Wishful thinking. A loud
knock on the door, panic. The neighbor from across the street, a lovely lady aged 93 that seemed eternal, was
found dead in her house by her grandson – the source of the bang on the door.
We got dressed, crossed the street to her home,
met another couple of neighbors there.
They had already called the ambulance. Apparently,
you don’t need to call the ambulance. Anyhow, it came. And said that the
procedure is to call the police. Which also came:
one car, then another. More neighbors. „What
happened?” …. Surreal scenes in which the four cops are asking each other about
which form to fill in. Overall, nice people all of them, compassionate, solved
the issue quickly and left. We also left, the family remaining to deal with the usual…
There must
be a lot of anthropological material in the way Romanians tackle death issues.
Far from somber images, the funerals are
a mix of circus and grief, old traditions and imagined ones, everyone has an
opinion about everything. What else can you expect from a people that have as favorite
dessert a „meal of the dead”’ – sweet wheat porridge only served at funerals
(and hipster restaurants with ice cream)?
Friday was
calmer, with the other old ladies on the street, her posse, so to speak, becoming
Miss Marple and trying to piece together the details of the previous evening,
adding to the story, imagining earthquakes at the wake, remembering other
funerals… I grew up here, the crowd got smaller with the passing of the years,
members of it moving from the seating position to the table in the center of the room. One by one. Leaving
memories of laughter and tears.
Saturday
was cold and snowy. The kind of day that you would hate being out unless it is on a slope and there is mulled
wine at the end of it. Mushy streets, the priest saying that he will arrive
after 2 pm. There is a new priest in the neighborhood.
The previous one retired. He knew all the old ladies, this new guy is
disconnected, he can’t understand the quirks. Didn’t pass approval as of yet. He
felt the need after the funeral rite to say a few words. Nice ones, about the
need to be kind and atone. They reached deaf ears
because everyone was stressing about the snow and the fact that dusk was
coming. It all sounded very Robert Rodriguez. The
night is coming, and we must get
this over with.
The cemetery was muddy, cold, snow came down
faster, the rite went by quickly, there was another funeral coming, and they needed to wrap up by nighttime too.
Going back to the car, contact. Dead. The
battery that is. Suitable for a cemetery.
Get people out of the car. Call an Uber. Send them home. Call for help reliable
friends. They send back ETA: 33 minutes. Dusk is coming. The other funeral
wrapped up too, people leaving fast. The gravediggers finished their business
and went, after asking if I need any help
and if I am sure it is because of the battery. Nice people, compassionate.
The snow is
falling faster, the raised hood of the car cannot keep all of it away. Success,
I manage to make it start, dusk at my heels. If it were a movie, it would be
incredulous: the heroine managing to start the car, in the nick of time,
zombies approaching… There were no zombies in the Saturday snowy cemetery. Just memories of laughter and tears.
And of kind people helping when necessary.
Some other time, I
will tell you about the story of my grandfather’s funeral – a series of
unfortunate events which are the food for a very Balkan movie.
Nighttime.
I am home, a bit freezing, a bit cold. All is well, the car is in the garage. The dogs are not howling. My neighbor from across the street was a lovely lady. May she rest in peace.
The main
character sits in front of her laptop, very Carrie Bradshaw, typing away. A
full moon rises.
Fade out.
