Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

Faruk Šehić

The total power of the State could be seen in the fact that even its lowest echelon, Kosta the park warden, was perfectly intimidating. We avoided him like the plague, and we would wait for him to go down the road into town reciting the Party slogans he had learned by heart, which could even make the bark of the robinias seem smooth and soft. Then we would dash to the wild and irrepressible bushes with sturdy rods sprouting yellow petals all along their length; we called them magelana , but later I discovered they were Forsythia. These were our boats, which we named after the famous Portuguese seafarer Ferdinand Magellan. Every magelana could fit two sailors and a captain. Our magelanas grew close together, so we could see

and call to each other on our imaginary journeys. It was best when a warm spring breeze came up, and then it was like a gale that strained at the ropes of our ships and rocked us on the branches like mariners fighting against a raging sea. Everything started to spin around us – the grass, the trees, the gravel on the paths and the houses nearby. That was the moment when we were freed of gravity. The Earth turned and the world hung above us, but we gave resolute orders and bravely put out into the wide sea of the sky. We sailed without fear, with our hearts as astrolabe and compass. Look, this is where that marvellous tree used to be, whose trunk was completely covered in ivy, so it was easy to climb up its tough veins into the crown, where you

168