through a pitch black night a car races through unlit highways, reaching in speed 200 km per hour. this is happening in an island of africa, where roads either curl around houses built way before any motor vehicle had seen the light of day, or connect distant villages built high up on mountains through valleys that separate them. techno is present inside this speeder of ours, almost riding over in volume the sounds that the motor is forced to produce.
on the backseat a girl sits stuffed inside a black rain coat. she knows fear is not appropriate when facing speed, so instead she gives her life to so called higher hands in order to relax. tricking her mind, if you will, like in thinking that she will never be as sure as now that death would wipe her out as happy as possible, given her brain playing the e note.
going fast through darkness is pretty much what everything in space does, but one does not really grasp it before sitting on the backseat of a car. from the front seat one can see well all that is within the range of the headlights, something not nearly as obscure as the light of distant stars blocked momentarily from the eyes hidden in the backseat by random trees or buildings passed.
all in all, a great situation to turn inward and dive into the internal space from which one rarely brings back anything tangible. and so went the night hours.
internal space ended when the sun began its rise, and it was just a bit before six am when the car pulled up by a field squeezed between three high hills.
"why did we stop?"
"you remember when I told you about antonio, the guy I went to the same school with as a kid? his father lives here."
"oh yeah?"
"yes. me and pino thought this would be a good thing for you to see. see those donkeys over there? there's seven of them and they're owned by the father of antonio. every morning he comes down here and takes one of the donkeys to go up that hill with him for the day. you know he's over 80 years old?"
"why does he go up the hill with the donkeys?"
"so that the donkeys could see the view, of course."
"does he have like monday tuesday wednesday thursday donkey, you know do they all have their own day, or does he have a favorite donkey that gets to go up with him more often?"
"I don't know about that."
"why wont the other donkeys follow him when he goes off with just one of them?"
"I think they have food down there where they are now."
all fell silent for quite some time, and observed with no fuss the coming and going of the old man, who still at his eight decade possessed will enough to wake up before six am on a sunday morning to take one of his dear donkeys to see the sights.
outside the car the light provided by the rising sun reflected from the moist gathered on the flora. the heat within the car had not told a word about the coldness of the night. the warrior on the front seat turned around to look at the girl in the back, and saw red cheeks glow as a bed for tired blue eyes.
"you have beautiful eyes. you're half something, korean right?"
"sono mongoloide."
pino laughed out loud for a while and started the car. he drove through small sinuous roads rising high enough to see far into the valleys slowly beginning their daily sunbathe. living through a night always leads to a serene morning, serene for having a promise of existence after a long, lived period of darkness. all were dead tired inside our car. alas, it was a pity that the gas ran out after a brief scorch on the highway.
not a soul answered their phone at 7 am on a sunday morning, so the kids opted to take a long walk for the nearest gas station, a walk that was to be counted in hours. the girl wrapped around herself, walking few meters behind from the boys. she felt cold and weak, not the least for having just spandex covered legs. the sun was up already, but it had not yet warmed the ground shocked by the sweeping cold masses of air from the surrounding sea. after half an hour of walking by the small country roads, the kids stopped.
"I wanna tell you something, mongoloid girl. by the looks of your legs, you are a nomad, and so were they. but I do think they were a step further than you, for I think you have not tamed a horse. I remember hearing a story about a king who had a son, whom he was to show his kingdom to by riding together on a single horse for months. and so they did until they ran out of food and had no luck in hunting around the deep gobi.
when the king saw that his son was getting weak and loosing his grip on life, he took his knife and made a cut on the shoulder of their horse, who stood gracefully without creating a scene out of bleeding. the king took out his chalice, and filled it with the blood of the mongolian horse, which is a pony in european standards, but has double the stamina of our equines, I hear.
and so the son drank up. and made to become a hell of a king."
