A Modern Romania

A latest type limousine is putting on the brakes, with wheels creak, just about a meter from you, while you are in the middle of zebra crossing. So, you suddenly awaken in the "Modern Romania".

All your memories are instantaneous dispersing, your daily dreaming are gone; that's enough already, you have just forgotten everything you've been thinking of, future plans, friends, family, your last profound/deep relaxation moment. All the books that you would enjoy reading them again, or an old movie that you saw one more time last evening and made your dreams sweet. It only remains a wet fear with cold sweat, the immobility, the incapability of moving in any way; even the fear of death has no longer significance. Your mobile phone is ringing in the middle of the day and find out something important. About a person that is close to you or even about yourself.

The emotional burst of enthusiasm is dying just about its top. All your efforts in keeping the enthusiasm rising are hopeless: "Come on, don't say, really? And how did this happen? Haaa. Who else was there? Really?! Is that what he said?!! That's great, fantastic, you can not even imagine how glad I am!! Go on. Tell me more. When was that??? Unbelievable!!! And what about the others? Ahaaa...well, it was quite normal, but the important thing is that it came off the way we have all expected for all those years". Meanwhile, your ear starts to sweat, you have a boring feeling and something metallic starts to boil to your brain, so you suggest a meeting as soon as possible to a central town pub. For when it would all be too late, as you have already find out everything that you've been interested in. So, the well intended messenger becomes a boring person, who is pulling the time with no use, without telling you something concrete, while you live like a hologram, in a past or in a future closer or farther from you. Or otherwise. You live the present to the highest level, watching the bill or the table companions attitude. Finally, it all submerge in a sloppy protocol, saying good-bye is tacking place in a festive setting of a frowzy hug, smiles and optimism with naphthalene smell, cab hunting, each one is crossing the street in a certain direction. That's it. Everything is over till the next meeting, caused by very important news.

Boredom. On your computer desktop it looks like you have just received an email from a person that you used to know, sometime ago. Your heart starts to thrill, your curiosity is catching you like fireworks, and so maybe is time for you to pull of some time and enjoy the moment. You open the email: it's about a sent/copied/forwarded Burundi tragedy from a specialized site. Total surprise. Astonishment. Your human nature is exploding inside you. Your most profound feelings, human experience start to reverberate like a dingdong, so you must forward the email to the next to you colleague, while you shout to him over your shoulder to immediately read it.

After that your pay-day is coming with the afferent bills, finally bohemian, a metaphysical cycle is ending, the subway is coming into its own, so as the real interpersonal connections.

I don't quite remember very well if this is the way I wanted to live. Before 1989, I use to live in an out of history Romania, connected to a fake time. I read about Romanian inter-war history and even today it seems to me that it was a modern Romania, then.

The crossroad nearby is obstructed and somebody is hysterically tooting. I can not concentrate anymore. The end.

By Dragos Moldovan.

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