In memory of Pripyat...24 years later

Well, translation is bad as always...sorry for that...I just think everything is worth mentioning...

THE LAST DAY



At the same moment when Masha pressed yellow colored pencil on paper, through the kindergarten windows, slowly pushing way through green treetops, a sparkle of sun made its way. For a second it stopped on her soft, fluffy blond curls…
Masha thought about the butterfly, and, while holding a pen too tight, colored carefully near the edges of a drawing, like Dad taught her.
Then she thought about Mom and somewhere deep inside she felt a realy little sorrow, short like all sorrows of 5-year old girls, so short that next second smile was again on her face, while she was thinking about the moment they will hug each other, and she’ll show her a drawing she made that morning.
And very next moment, it was all about the butterfly and yellow pencil that silently rustles on paper, carefully, very carefully near the edges.

*********

With a taste of vanilla on a top of her tongue, Julia was enjoying a happy afternoon.
She was happy so cleanly and intensively, just like one can only be when there’s no particular reason for it. Like, for example, when in the early afternoon of the young spring, you feel a taste of your first ice cream of this year.
Julia was slowly walking through a park, children were playing on a small playground, teenagers in love were sitting on a benches, and, up in the sky, Sun was turning yellow Merry-go-round chairs to a photo flashes. Just like someone knew that this day should be recorded, carefully stored and pressed between notebook pages, somewhere deep inside a drawer that only you can unlock.
“I’ll hug her, I’ll kiss her, we’ll hold hands and then we’ll go to Merry-go-round. Who cares it’s not Saturday? We are going to Merry-go-round, and we will laugh, and she will scream of joy when we reach the top, with the whole city and the whole world beneath us…”
With a spring smile on her face, Julia turned to a street that led to a kindergarten.

*********

While she was waiting, Ana anxiously tried to read Geography book, but soon enough she quit, put the book back in the schoolbag and took a deep breath.
Square was full of people and behind her, from the big meadow, gentle breeze carried a smell of daises. Ana thought that it’s just the same like a chamomile smell and she wondered if he would smile if he knew what is she thinking about.
Then she saw him, got up from the bench, while her heart began to beat stronger.

*********

Right before Sasha kicked the ball, Igor decided to jump left. He touched the ball with fingertips and feel into the dust. While he was kicking on his brown corduroy pants to clear the dust, girls were smiling and jumping over rubber band.
Some random man stopped near the pedestrian crossing to pass a group of school girls...in the store, cashier was slowly typing prices…line was not that big and people were patiently waiting…water concluded over boy that jumped into the pool…dog joyfully start wagging his tail after hearing familiar sound in backyard…some couple leaned just a bit to overpass under bent chestnut tree branch (and he secretly checked her breasts)…people were riding bikes, driving cars, they walked, talked, laughed, smoke…they stared at something, they were nervous, happy, they were late, they…lived.
Igor clapped on his dusty pants for the last time and smiled.
Girls were jumping over rubber band…

Yelena was first to see them.
She just pointed her finger and said:
“Buses.”
Few moments later, endless silence was broken only by a breathing of people standing still…and a persistant buzz of yellow buses…

*********

It was year 1986. On a big side wall of old house just across Gymnasium, they draw the a huge mascot of Universiad…by Igor Milanovic goal in last second Yugoslavia become the world waterpolo champion…Borges died…in Mexico, Maradona took Argentina to a title of World cup winners…Olaf Palme was killed…Cliff Burton died…USA attacked Libya…and near Jablanica, Drazen Ricl and Aljosa Buha were killed in car accident.
And the Chernobil Accident happened.

Parents kept us in houses for couple of days, scared of radioactive clouds…people were calling radio to ask if they are allowed to eat fruits and salad…and just few miles of nuclear reactor, 50.000 people entered yellow buses in a evacuation that lasted for just a couple of hours.
Only Pripyat was left there. 24 years later it looks almost the same. Children drawings in kindergarten, Merry-go-round with yellow chairs over the city…snow falling on the benches…curtains swaying on the windows…and in the spring…square smells like daises, and, maybe, someone would thought that it’s just like the chamomile smell.







Maybe, if only someone was there.

And…it’s okay to leave your childhood…to berry it like a treasure case on a place only you know…Street with a scent of apple cake, bench with your name carved, river that smells just like every other rivers in the world, except for that small, tiny tone only you can recognize…
It’s okay to leave your childhood, but it’s not easy to know that you will never be able to come back.

And it would be such a comfort to believe that in 300 hundred years or so…someone will live in Pripyat again…and that someone will love Pripyat again.
Maybe because cities need love too, and maybe because of Yulia and her graffiti on a building covered in ivy…
It would be such a comfort that somewhere, sometimes, to someone…graffiti “Forgive me, my hometown”…in the big empty city…will mean something.



It would be such a comfort…and we all need a comfort and hope that once everything will be just like it supposed to be.
A long time ago, while the world was still beautiful and naïve, like a smile on a child’s face.



Pripyat before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bGGKNSEsq8&feature=related

Pripyat today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4cDD69cTlM