CooCOOcooCOO

Anytime I hear the sound “CooCOOcooCOO”, coming from a dove, I smell kindled hay, gathered in order to make a soup with lovage. Suddenly, I’m transferred to a room in which the chill of the clay walls overrules the burning of the August sun. It is calm and quiet; so quiet that we can hear the fly buzzing in the next room. 

The smell of green pears, brought inside to ripe faster, overarches everything. Even the hammock-bed, in which my cousin and I sit, waiting for the afternoon nap time to pass. But we keep ourselves busy, though. With our hands, we have invented a new alphabet, trying not to speak and give ourselves away by making noise and showing that we do not sleep. It is actually something that we got accustomed to do, now, as adults. To become more and more keen on miming something that it is not. 

But it’s way too nice in here, in the “CooCOOcooCOO” memory, to spoil it. And the smell of the pears cures everything. Even the hypocrisy.