Danube

The gray covers the canal and empty branches of the trees and the people huddled into winter clothes and speaks to this fact: the right ear is too small for this bluetooth headphone bud. It keeps falling out.

In a late night deep-dive into old Emails from her mother she finds a song that moved her strangely, more than a decade ago: Dumitriu Stanescu's interpretation of 'On the Banks of the Danube'. Tears smear all over her face, the toilet role tucked behind the lamp lest it looks too messy on the desk she originally wanted to dedicate her studies to. The pain of this grief is seemingly unsurmountable. She tries to hide behind pizza, behind Netflix, behind Instagram, succumbs a little then reaches out to others in a rare attempt to build a structure around her as she crumbles into the nameless pit of dark sorrow. Love, riddled with pain and sweetness, she doesn't know how to name things anymore as the contoures dissolve.

Mom said: your words are strong and poetic, I see a future there.

Mom said: come with me to Slowakia.

Mom said: If you weren't my daughter I would still find a way to cross your path.

The next day she has to go send a package to an unknown person who will take this laptop she received from another unknown person to a person she really only knows on Instagram in Tanzania. Ironic, considering the stack of unsent letters from her past.

It goes like this: She manages to choose the right package and the materials to cushion the laptop. She watched a Youtube video so she knows what to look out for: the corners must be protected. The tape the post office provides to seal packages is broken. She finds a way to still deal with it. She sends (!) the package and realizes ten minutes after, that she forgot to add the charger. Apple chargers cost an arm and a leg so she has to return to the office, ask for the package that hopefully hasn't left the premises yet, open it with a knife and add the charger. She does that and thinks of her headphone bud that keeps falling out from her right ear. Some things just don't work out right, it's like a curse. A different world that she doesn't belong to, whose language she doesn't fully speak - but the irony doesn't escape her so she chuckles instead, but a bit desperately. 

Mom is doing better, she is a bit high with all the meds. When asking her if she will give her blessings on her wish to have a baby she insists to get a dog instead.