The first day when the summer breeze blows, an empty paper cup rolls through a slanting alley.
The same day, a cow notices dust clouds rising from afar. And a few garments dance on a clothesline like the world means nothing.
The cup hits a plain and comes to a standstill.
On that very day, a man stands in a field, wearing an orange raincoat. A lush green field. A field that vanishes into the horizon as a milky turquoise. An ochre road, however, pilfers the frame of its grand continuity, and cuts it into neat halves. His face is illegible.
The man in the orange raincoat looks up into the sky, and even as he looks, the white becomes riddled with specks. And as the specks steadily grow larger, a droning can be heard. Are those aeroplanes?
The first explosion makes the ground shudder. A few birds fly off. The man desperately turns around, and starts running. As he struggles to reach the bisecting path, a few more impacts turn the world in strange angles, offering new, ghastly perspectives. A rush of wind passes over him; the man in the orange raincoat raises his head and gasps for air. The planes are gone, and a settlement is in sight.
The man tumbles into the burning town, and looks around like a stranger. The grey, brown, red and yellow of the houses unify through the dancing steam. The man in the orange raincoat keeps running.
He stops. He stops in front of the whitest house you have ever seen. Untouched by the fire, it almost looks like an abode. The man enters through the white door, and walks across a long corridor. Here he reaches another door, and he pauses. Slowly he opens his raincoat, folds it neatly, and keeps it aside. The man, now no longer in an orange raincoat, opens the door.
Inside, a woman lies on a bed; a bowl of water rests beside her with a white cloth dipped in it. She looks like a drop of bliss.
He speaks – Where are they?
– They are gone, she says.
– And what about you?
– You are here.
He walks over to her, and places his hand over her bulging stomach – Yes, he says, it will be all right.
