SEVEN BILLION
BOOK - TRAILER
SEVEN BILLION
Anna Russo
Seven Billion by Anna Russo
© Copyright 2011 – Anna Russo
ISNB
978-1-4679-0593-0
I don’t quite know what shape the world has; I heard
it is round but, besides this, I don’t really know much else and since who told
me said it with a “certain tone”, I guess it is better to accept it as true.
However, I was never told how round it may be, except
for that slight pressure at its poles, or how wide it actually is.
Oh, yes, that’s right! The measurements were made and
considered accurate even if not as accurate as those taken by my mother/sewer
when I was a child and took mine.
Who knows how much measuring tape it would have taken
to quantify its circumference and how long it would have taken to roll it up
again?
Anyway, all these details made me believe that the
world is pretty big. Big enough to hold seven billion men, women and children.
Big enough to hold their homes, the factories, the
automobiles, the roads, the prisons, the schools, the hospitals, the cinemas,
the theatres, the libraries, carpenter shops, wine shops, shopping malls, bars,
restaurants, police stations, lakes, rivers and seas.
Fortunately enough, the sky doesn’t weigh.
A.R.
To Sarah
If they could have, they would have called him Sevenbillion.
Fortunately it was not possible so they had to give him a name and last name,
even if both went ignored.
Ignored even by he who would have had to respond to
that name.
The
problem was that seven billion was such an important number to him and to those
who lived with him, that it was just impossible to call him in any other way.
After all, being named by a number could have been
considered not so congenial, given that it could have brought back to mind
rather sad events, such as wars and imprisonments; but for he and for those who
welcomed him, it assumed a whole different meaning; Sevenbillion was like being
in back of a row; in row in front of a bank, a post office, a movie theatre, a
circus.
A row made of 6,999,999,999 human beings and finally him…the
seven billionth person to be born to this world.
He came to the world and was told right away of his uniqueness.
He was told of this way before he had even been given
a name.
That is why he though that that number was actually
his real name and, who could blame him, since such a name, even if it was a number,
would have been like Napoleon or Tutankhamen.
They say that names contain certain vibrations that
influence our lives, our personalities, and to those who take care of us and
who know us; and according to the name given determined the level of success he
would have in his lifetime.
Who knows if Julius Caesar would have had the same
fortune if he was named Giuseppe Capello? And would have Anthony fallen to
Cleopatra’s feet if she was named Genovefe?
Perhaps Nero would have had a happier life if his
mother had called him Palomo; and what would Adolph Hitler have done if he was
called Giacomo De Bellis, or more confidentially Giacomino? A military treaty
where the destruction of who knows what is being ordered and is signed by such
a sweet and delicate name like Giacomo De Bellis most probably would have not
been taken seriously and could have in somewhat way be considered a
philosophical treatise, a sort of provocation.
And so history, with all its names changed, would have
gone in a different way.
But for the moment, history was still the same;
destructions and mass exterminations were all there. Those who had declared to
do something good were all killed and the same fate took those who swore not to
do anything at all.
In other words, with those names in circulation,
things went just as they always did.
Everyone had and had been given a name and it just
happened that he was the seven billionth child to be born.
But a child is only a child at its birth and it would
have been simpler if he had not been given a name at all, in that way we would have
avoided putting in jeopardy his future (mistaking name or even impulsively
exaggerating) and, in consequence, that
of humanity around him.
At the climax of utopia, any child, growing up, could have
chosen the sound that mostly described him, according to his nature, and it
could have gone from a magnificent ohhh, to a fantastic ehhh, a merry ihhh to then change during the
years or even in the same day, following one owns sensations.
In this way we would have ended up not being called
anymore and avoiding terrible scolding and consequent traumas due to those
distressing…Albert, come here!! Albert, what did I tell you??,
Albert…Albert…Albert..!!!
Just try scolding a child who’s called eh or
another named ih, and notice that he has just decided to call himself ah,
you’ll see that he’ll think you’re laughing so he’ll start laughing along with
you.
Complicated, incorruptible, untameable, free.
But for now, things did not go this way.
We all have names, except in his case, because his
name was a number.
But despite the news of his birth appeared on all
newspapers and televisions of half of the world talked about it, his life was
not very different from millions of other Roberts, Camillas, Abelardis, and Gioacchinis.
At least it was this way in the beginning…
Since they had told him that he was the seven
billionth child born on earth and since he was at that age when everything is
taken seriously, he could not get those words seven billionth and world
out of his head and he did not really know if he was the number or the world or
even both.
Anyway, he opened up his eyes and took at heart the
numbers and facts of the world.
He grew up like no other child had done before.
His mother would take him to the park and instead of
playing ball, learning to bike ride, throw pebbles in the water, give
breadcrumbs to the goose, go down the slides, or go on the swing like all the
other children did, he would simply lay down on the lawn and count how many
flowers and how many strands of grass there were and, amazing as it may seem,
he knew it!
Sevenbillion knew exactly that on the left side of the
park near his home on the flowerbed laid eight hundred thousand strands of
grass, five hundred and thirty-two flowers, of which thirty-four were yellow, fifty-seven
violet and the rest between white and pink.
Because of this awkward need, by the age of four he
was already able to write and count in order to jot down everything on a little
green notebook.
And if the entire world, made of people, were aware of
this, Sevenbillion would certainly have been put into one of those mysterious
centres where children considered geniuses are examined.
But his mother, who was a woman who had learned that
in life there was no room for astonishments, did not remain surprised by her
son’s precocity nor did she ever think of boasting him. She accepted it, just
like she accepted the days passing without ever counting them. So the world
never found out about her childs particularity.
Sevenbillion was the freest boy in the world and it’s
not that he didn’t have any rules to follow; it’s only that he had a few.
Despite his name, Sevenbillion only had two rules to
follow: always say the truth and never do to others what you would not like to
be done to you.
This is where his mother’s educational repertory came
to conclusion, who synthesized in two simple phrases everything she had learned
in life up till then.
And this kind of education, where no discussions were
admitted, greatly simplified the life of that little boy with the important name.
It was like proceeding on a street with perfectly
simple indications with no way to detour.
The two maternal phrases allowed no doubts.
Sevenbillion had only himself to use as a comparison
and since he loved himself, desired only the best for himself and this brought
to desire the best for others as well, therefore he could not hide behind
dishonesty and lies.
The terms were clear.
His mother had brought him to this world even though
life had recommended the opposite and spoke with that innocent frankness that
could not be let down.
She had lovingly conceived him with a man that did not
belong to her world. So her world repudiated her and she, with pride, went
away.
She found hospitality in a town certainly not as pleasant
as her own, but much more understanding.
And when the baby was born, she waited until the world
finished welcoming him, she gave him a card with his number written on it,
asking him to wait in line, and when they finally were left alone, she looked
around making sure that nobody was really around and sat the baby on her lap
and looking straight into his eyes and started to speak.
She spoke to him as if he was a grownup man, although
he was only half an hour.
She drew off the flies from his face and smiled, like
only she could have done, and it was then that she said the very few words she
had to say.
She explained her two only teachings.
Also, she told him that he would grow and that he
would have gone to school, that he would have had a marvellous life.
She talked about things that she did not know and used
only a few words, just like the many things life had reserved for her, taking
away much of the rest.
There was only one thing that life had not been able
to take way, despite it had tried in many ways: hope.
And it was exactly the name of his mother: Hope.
Hope was only fourteen years old when she had
Sevenbillion.
So she found herself a child with a child and it was
probably for this reason that they always understood each other very well.
Hope never felt like a mother nor did she have the age
to be one and Sevenbillion never felt like a son, even if he had the age to be
one.
They acted as if they had quite a lot of distance to
cover together and it is exactly what they would have done.
Because of the number he had been picked out for him,
everything that usually happens to the millionth customer at a supermarket,
happened to Sevenbillion.
Things were given out free to Sevenbillion and not
just for one day, but for eighteen years!
It was real luck for him and his mother Hope since
they did not have any idea how to maintain themselves.
And this is when Hope’s words began to come true.
They left the sand, the dust, the shouts, the crowd,
the odours, the anger and the fear and went to live in a tiny house in the
middle of a big city.
Sevenbillion’s benefits did not really help much, but,
untill then, neither of the two had ever had anything, except if you recognize
the fact that they had life, which was already pretty much, and they were happy
with that.
Hope did not have to go to work to maintain her son
and Sevenbillion did not have to go back and forth from nurseries to baby
sitters.
Once in a while, some journalist or photographer who
remembered the fact that Sevenbillion was the sevenbillionth child to be born,
would come around their town.
But they all left with empty hands.
Since he was still a baby, Sevenbillion could not
answer their questions and Hope did not have any responses to give, since she
was illiterate and had no idea what the number stood for.
Whether the
number “seven billion” was put in letters or in numbers made no difference to
her and she remained amazed by the design of the figure.
But, nevertheless, those who could take treasure of
those few monosyllables made by Sevenbillion and captured the lovingness of
Hope and were able to draw up real interviews, could not publish anything anyway
because there was no elder to sign the release.
What remained was the possibility to talk about
them, but nobody could ever be familiar with what they thought nor were there
any photographs.
Sevenbillion’s life, despite his fame, went unnoticed
and was lived like any other child of his age. More or less like any other
child because Sevenbillion and his mother were two special people.
They were two children and one just happened to have
to call the other mother.
Since they had lived longer, mothers usually had many
things to teach their children, but it’s not as if Hope had lived that much
longer.
Summing it up, Hope only had fourteen years more than
Sevenbillion and they were spent mostly in driving away flies, gathering water,
finding wells, creating paths and putting up tents.
Hope belonged to a nomad tribe of the desert and these
were the only things that she knew.
Actually, she also knew other things that were part of
her ancestral heredity, but they did not appear useful at that moment and she
did not even know that she had passed it all on to her son as well.
In the place where destiny had decided to bring them
both there was no need for Hope’s experiences.
Water came directly from the tap. Instead of tents,
there were homes. Paths were called streets and there was no need to find them or
to make them. It wasn’t necessary to hunt for food, but simply go to the
market.
In this way, Hope did not have much to teach her
child, even if they were not the things she had desired for him.
So Hope and Sevenbillion looked over bureaucratic
problems and never thought about being mother and son nor did Sevenbillion ever
call Hope, Mother.
He always called her Hope, that was her name, and
every time he called her during the day equalled to a hope that could only be
animated in a mothers heart.
And among Hope’s desires was the precise will that
Sevenbillion learn to read and write, that he learn to speak before a crowd of
people without being ashamed of not being able to put three words together and
last, hidden way back in the closet of her hopes, right behind the wall of her
conscious, there lied another little hope, a bit playful…
Hope desired
that Sevenbillion would have all his teeth and not just one here and one there
like she had; Hope could have been considered pretty but as soon as she smiled…with
that smile that seemed a checker board broken to pieces between white and black
squares, all those points she had only a moment before achieved, were quickly
cancelled.
So Hope did not laugh very often or rather she only
laughed with Sevenbillion, who never knew the story of her smile.
And this was Hope and Sevenbillion’s life, who for eight
years lived in a small house made of one room and a bath, which was the best
the government could offer them and was much more than they ever could have
hoped for.
Sure, Hope had lived in a bigger house before. She had
the sky as a roof, there were no walls and for the hall she had a whole desert
at hand, but in this world –strange enough, what seems a lot, seems little.
She realized how small her house was, but she also
knew that if you wanted to live in this world, you had to learn to compromise.
Hope did compromise, she made her house smaller and
brought Sevenbillion to school every morning, whether it rained or there was
sunshine, whether she was sick, tired, happy or sad.
She knew that if you wanted to obtain something or
wanted to leave a mark in this world, or rather, if one wanted to conquer the
world you had to first become acquainted with it and then know how to speak to
it and the first step in doing so is to study it.
Hope took Sevenbillion to school and then sat down on
a rock not too far off from the gate. She would remain motionless for hours under
the sun if there was any or under an umbrella if there wasn’t, while waiting
for her son to learn everything he needed to learn.
They would return home just like they had left and
Sevenbillion would tell her everything he had learned that day.
So he taught her to write and to read.
He talked about thunder and lightning, about clouds,
the wind, the sea, something Hope never saw, about pirates, astronauts,
satellites in orbit and about stars.
Sometimes Hope could hardly believe what she was
hearing. She would listen astonished and then dream about it all night.
In a short while the roles had switched.
Hope learned at such an amazing pace all that
Sevenbillion taught her.
So Sevenbillion had to soon find more and more things
to satisfy his mothers’ need of knowledge.
Thanks to all these particularities, by the age of
eight Sevenbillion knew more than a boy at fifteen and this made Hope prouder
than anyone else, even if, wisely, never declared so.
Then something happened that changed the course of the
events……
The day Sevenbillion turned nine.
Sevenbillion never really had much appetite, be that
he was not interested at eating at all, be that he profoundly only had the
world at heart.
What he was told at birth struck him deeply and he
based his existence in virtue of this thought: he never ate much because he did
not want to weigh too much.
He did not want to be a burden for the world.
He thought that since there were six billion and …..
other human beings before him, it was already an enormous amount to consider.
And it was not in his intention to become the drop
that made the vase overflow.
So he always tiptoed through life, feared by the
thought that he could have been one too many.
One day he tried to discuss this with his mother, but
that day Hope did not seem very shrewd. She made things even worse when she
told him that other children were born after him and that the number had
certainly increased by now.
This thought depressed Sevenbillion.
He pictured the world like a ball covered with about
seven billion little colourful dots. This ball shaped world in Sevenbilion’s
mind was divided in half.
A clear-cut line separated one shadier zone, where
everyone slept, from another with a lot of sunlight and
threebillionfivehundredmillion human beings who lived there and were busy
digging, walking, seeding, propping, plunging, and jumping. A considerable
number of human chaoses.
Sevenbillion often asked himself why humanity did not realize
how fragile and precious the ground they walked on was.
The word trample had the sound of an offence to
him.
Sevenbillion considered the earth more his mother than
he did with Hope.
They both were, actually they all were, earth’s
children and nobody could trample over one’s own mother unless they wanted to
suffer for the rest of their lives.
His only consolation was the part of the earth that
remained in shade: a sort of truce.
Humanity finally had given the earth a break: it was
asleep.
But the weight remained (people weigh the same even if
they lye on bed) but a weight that stands still is easier to hold up than a
weight in movement.
And these were the thoughts that always animated
Sevenbillion’s mind, so when the event that I am about to talk about happened,
his life really changed.
It was a rainy day.
And until here everything was ok, except for the fact
that rain was pretty rare around his parts. But it was not this that determined
Sevenbilion’s decision, but the earth’s.
It barely rained where he lived, so the earth was not
used to all that water; it had transformed it into mud, but not everywhere. It
only happened in that little garden where Sevenbillion and Hope usually went
every afternoon to read.
It happened exactly at that spot, between a bench and
a giant tree, where the earth was no longer solid and when Sevenbillion walked
on it, his foot sank.
Not much, in fact, but enough to frighten him and
those nearby.
Sevenbillion sank up to his knees and there was no way
out of that terrifying mess.
That was when the boy thought he had become that last
drop that hade made the vase overflow.
It took three boys to get him out and when they did, instead
of his shoes, he found two clods of dirt and with his arms up in the air that were
divided by all those other arms that tried to pull him out, he seemed a strange
leafless boy-tree who had just been uprooted, ready to be planted somewhere
else.
With those shoes, there was no way to go anywhere, so
Hope took them off.
Sevenbillion went back home barefoot. He washed his feet
and went to bed and the day after there was no way of getting him out of bed.
Hope woke up at seven o’clock as usual and she was
already expecting to see him coming famished to table for breakfast but
instead…
Sevenbillion remained in bed, staring at her.
Soon after, they began to discuss.
Sevenbillion, who loved Hope more than anything else,
tried to do what his mother had asked him to do: he tried to get out of bed and
put one foot on the floor.
He barely touched the floor with his big toe when he
felt this tremendous burn.
After a shout, he quickly lifted it back up.
This was enough to make Hope believe that the only way
to help Sevenbillion was to go back in time, to when she was just a child and
sat on her granny’s lap in front of the tents.
After a long day spent in the search of water courses
in the desert with the tribe, she and her granny used to watch the sun as it
slowly disappeared into the earth.
Their footprints formed such incredible spiral forms
on the land that man from the other side of the world had always asked
themselves what those signs meant. Once, one even hypothesized that they could
have been possible messages for aliens.
But those twisted designs did not contain any message,
it was the thirst that guided them and inspired them, the power to feel
the earth and sense the water.
Sometimes those spirals were suddenly interrupted: it
was because of some members of the tribe that had not followed the correct way;
they were not in peace with the earth so the earth punished them, making them
lose the way.
But all this was never understood by the people who
came from the other world. All these things were not considered important to
them. They thought that scenting was something only dogs did, forgetting how
much of our past and future was hidden in a scent, but most of all, they
thought that water had no scent, so they left this belief to the tribal peoples
(this is how they were called).
But Hope, who belonged to that people, knew the scent
of water and knew that of the earth, too and her granny knew these scents more
than anyone else.
Hope felt a bit guilty about what Sevenbillion was
going through.
She knew that her son had inherited the beliefs of her
people and now he was at odds with himself because where they lived, earth was
not loved but only exploited. If she had remained with her tribe, Sevenbillion
would have grown up in peace with earth, learning how to treat and respect it.
Instead, it was time to restore some balance because
if Sevenbillion had those thoughts, it was not casualness.
The nomad tribe in which Hope belonged to did not live
on the earth but with the earth.
Mother Earth, as they defined it, loving and
respecting it, even when it got angry and became stingy, just to soon after
gather the fruits of her generosity.
Hope knew that she had handed on to Sevenbillion all
these beliefs while he still was in her womb. All that she knew in her heart
and in her mind was passed on to him without anyone noticing.
Sevenbillion had inherited the ancestral knowledge of
the tribe. He surely possessed their most hidden endowments, those of the witch
doctors, and had the gift to feel the earth; since he had not grown up with his
ancestors, these perceptions, in a world that behaved the opposite way, turned
into fears.
“The only person who could help you is granny…”, Hope
thought. But it was necessary to go back to the desert and search for her and
even if the tribe moved from time to time, Hope always knew where to find her.
That night, Hope left the city. She would have made return
seven days later.
She followed the scent of the water and found her
tribe.
Her Granny was sitting in front of a tent like always,
ever since Hope had gone away.
As soon as Hope and Granny saw each other, it seemed
as if those nine years had never gone by. They did not even embrace, they just
exchanged smiles.
Then Hope told her the only two things she had in her
heart, that she had had a baby and that they were doing fine.
At the end, she told her about the sorrow Sevenbillion
was going through and it was then that Granny began to laugh and said: “Your
child is son of the earth, like we all are. He feels his mother but he doesn’t
know her, so he thinks she has been humiliated. He is frightened. Earth speaks
to those who love him through their dreams. This is why we are always able to
find water; earth speaks to us in our dreams. Probably the earth is now talking
to your son, who is part of us. Sevenbillion is a son of the tribe and possesses
all our knowledge. He knows the way of the water. He is sad before any
rainstorm and smiles four hours before the rise of the sun!”
At that point, granny remained silent, closed her eyes
and spoke as if she were the earth herself: “Earth is speaking to your son and
your son will listen and will find his way all alone. You shall not do
anything. You must only open the door when he decides to leave!”
“But he’s still so young!”, Hope objected.
“It is not that you are much older!” answered granny
bursting out laughing “…besides, when you left, nobody tried stopping you, so
why should you do so with him? Don’t you think it is quite conceiting of you
deciding for his life and do you really think that holding him back may change
something? The course of the events is like a river in flood. What is to happen
is already written, whether we want it or not!. But when you look back at these
things at a distance of time, you’ll notice that there was a good reason for it
to happen, even if it did not seem so at the moment!”
And that was the longest speech granny ever made; she
then waved goodbye and went back into her tent.
Hope knew that this meant the end of any discussion
and from where she came from nobody ever called back someone to continue or,
even worse, ever followed them for the same reason.
Granny disappeared in the tent and it was at that
point that Hope realized that there was nothing else around; only the sky, the
earth and, right in the middle, those fragile, imperceptible and unreal tents
of her people.
Hope was a bit ashamed of herself and she was
wondering why she had left all this and why she had put Sevenbillion in this
situation.
Her son had the not so marginal right to such heredity.
He possessed an antique knowledge of a people but all
this made no sense where she had brought him to live. It could have even been dangerous.
She was about to leave when her granny’s voice
whispered through the tent “If your son did not desire the same things you did,
you would have never left to go live in the city. It’s useless that you think about it now!”
Hope listened to each and every word and started to
walk into the tent to continue her chat with granny, when she stopped.
There was no need to enter. She waited a moment.
She laid down next to the tent and started to count
every pebble, every rock, and every dune. She had learned to count. But she
realized that even when she did not how to, she knew exactly how many rocks and
how many pebbles there were around her and she even knew whether or not there
was water or if there was no place to search for it, and whether the earth suffered
or overjoyed, just like all the other members of her people, Sevenbillion
included.
So she said goodbye to the earth and asked her to help
Sevenbillion. She explained that her son loved her more than anyone else.
Then she raised her eyes to the sky and saw a star
that indicated the way home.
Hope followed the star and three and a half days later
arrived.
It was night time at her arrival.
She entered in the house but Sevenbillion was not
home. Worried, she searched for him everywhere. She looked under the bed, under
the closet, in the closet, in the drawers, under the table. She even peeked in
the pots, but it was useless: Sevenbillion was not home.
So she ran out to the lawn in front of their house and
she found him.
Sevenbillion was lying on a tree, as if he was a
branch, and was very thin: he must not had eaten for all those days.
Hope saw him and suddenly two contrasting thoughts
came to her mind: she was relieved to see him but was sad to find him entirely
pale and what’s more, up on a tree.
All choked up, Hope slowly got closer to the tree and
with a stifled voice, which she did not even recognize as hers, said the only
thing that seemed right to say: “Come down right away! You cannot stay here!”
At that moment Sevenbillion was still asleep and woke
up so startled that he did not recognize his mother’s voice. He thought that it
was the tree speaking with him so he asked “Why can’t I”
“Because you are a child and not a bird or a
squirrel”, answered Hope, who realized the misunderstanding and played along,
pretending to be the tree.
“It’s true! But I am the seven billionth child and we
are too many on earth, so it is right that somebody learn to transform himself
and you’ll see that many others will do the same after seeing me. I will become
a tree and probably others who are more capable will become birds and will
learn to fly so they will no longer be a weight for the world!”
At that point, the tree laughed at Sevenbillion, who
on the contrary, thought to have expressed deep thoughts, and got upset.
So the tree cleared its position and answered: “You’re
making a big mistake, because it’s fine for those who wish to become birds or
ants or even fish, but we trees are very heavy and a tree can weigh as much as
a thousand human beings; instead, a child on earth is no problem at all! Earth
is barely aware of their steps and when you run, if you really want to know,
the earth hardly feels you!”
Sevenbilion’s
face lightened up at the sound of these words.
“Why run?”
“Because when you run, which is like jumping, for a
moment you are no longer with your feet on the ground. Running is a little like
flying. So now run! Go rest in a place more appropriate for a child. I am
tired!”
So Sevenbillion went to sleep in his bed, even if not
all his doubts had been cleared.
That night he dreamt of running, flying and swimming.
He turned into a frog, a heron and into a red fish and
when he woke up he decided to put all this into practice.
Hope never told him that she had played the part of
the tree, but she did not consider it a lie or an omission, she only thought
that if the tree could have spoken it would have said the same exact things.
Anyway, those words, whether they belonged to Hope or
to the tree, made a very particular effect on Sevenbilion’s attentive and needy
for responses spirit, and came to his own conclusions.
That morning, Sevenbillion woke up, sat
on the bed and said “Good morning!”, and it was not just a simple greeting.
That morning really meant to be the good morning
to put all those thoughts he had in mind into practice.
So he got out of bed and began to jump around the
house like a frog saying it was the easiest thing to do.
Then he ate and put in his pocket everything that
remained when he told his mother that he wanted to go to the sea.
Hope answered that the sea was more than three
thousand kilometres away and that they had no way of getting there since the
journey would have been expensive and they did not have any money.
So Sevenbillion
began to laugh, saying that jumping never cost anybody anything.
They would have “jumped” their way to the beach and
once there, they would have swam in the water, never weighing on the earth
again.
At this point, Hope really did not know what to do and
started to feel guilty because she for first, spoke about jumping and swimming
to Sevenbillion.
She was about to cry when Sevenbillion reached out for
her hand and jumping said, “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but I
feel that it is something that I have to do. Maybe I am a dreamer, but I don’t
think to be the only one. You have given me the freedom to be whatever I want
and you have given me the earth as a mother. I now wish to repay her. You made
me study and I thank you for that, so now I know that water is the only element
that can make me lighten the weight on earth. Of course, there is also air, but
I cannot fly. Nevertheless I can swim, maybe not very well, probably I will
only float on the water, because I’m not interested in swimming, but just not
to be a weight.”
Hope never heard such a discourse before and was not
really thrilled about it. She then remembered the words her Granny had said to
her so her only reply was “When shall we leave?”
Sevenbillion, who loved her very much, hugged her and
looked into her eyes while saying: “It is not that we have to really leave, all
we must do is open the door and widen our house just a bit, and then all we
have to do is walk through the bigger rooms!”
Hope began to laugh: widen the house without breaking
down any walls, just open doors. In this expression, she found the words of her
forefathers, those of her Granny and she even thought to have heard her laugh,
too. But this was certainly all in her imagination.
She then made a decision. She no longer feared, went
straight to the door and opened it.
Sevenbillion then joined her and taking her hand like
always, and walked into the bigger room, the one with the sky like a roof.
