The Butterfly Effect
Darkness.
I sit comfortably in my living room enjoying the almost silence of the evening.
A glass of red wine on the coffee table and an eye on the news. I am not watching. I regard but I listen. I listen and I don’t hear. Images wind speedily in front of my eyes and I slightly turn my head as I would do if I were changing slides in a presentation.
The world turns around itself. I am spinning in my own world.
A typhoon makes victims and overrides all meteorological systems somewhere in the world. High winds, historical waves, victims are counted in tens and hundreds. The speaker sounds touched.
I ward off. I am somewhere between galaxies, mine and that of the Earth. My own seismic activity fails to be registered by my personal cerebral detector. It seems that there are moments when my brain connects with the heart and aborts its main correctional function. The trajectory of thoughts and that of feelings converge and end up in a volcano of impressions.
Virtually, I run upstairs and I check the kids’ bedrooms. I have just left them sleep smiling in their dwarf -like beds. B is afraid of storms, S will wake up early in the morning in order not to miss anything important by sunrise. J would just play along.
I feel sorry for the South hemisphere. I agreed to monthly donate to the Red Cross today. We agreed. I need new cupboards in the office room. I am so glad I got a vacuum cleaner brush. I am relieved to hear my husband zap back and forth the channels of the TV. I checked some old photos of my hometown on Google. My kids have an aseptic life. thank you God for having invented the dishwasher and the coffee! It costs us a fortune to go see a cow graze or play with a genetically modified goat. B got less than perfect grades in school; he now fears he will not get a present for Christmas. J played with my colored pencils and I hate it! S completed a 100 pieces puzzle in the hour I wanted piece of mind. I had sent him to his room. So quiet! The dog annoys the cat. She crashes on the small shelf, on top of the children’s clothes which she sniffs with delight. I would like to drink a Venetian hot chocolate. I miss home. I am grateful for this ordinary evening, when catastrophes exist only on the news. I have actually seen a picture of an old mine close to my hometown.
A tsunami at the other end of the world sweeps the wings of my butterfly soul and makes me travel around the world. Mine and that of my beloved ones.
Darkness. Lights. Sounds. Red Sancerre.