Anna S.

Scheele

We are normal

Alexandra and I have one thing in common: we both come from the same country and we came to Italy as
children. This commonality made us best friends from the first day we met.

At the moment, however, we share another thing with many other people from many different parts of the
world. It is a pandemic, or rather a new virus still undefeated by medicine. In short, for now it is
impossible to counterattack, so the only thing you can do to protect yourself is to defend yourself and this
consists in staying at home and going out only if strictly necessary. They've put entire states in quarantine.
And what could be better than spending this period of enforced calm with your best friend?

Alexandra and I did exactly this reasoning and therefore, when it became known about the imminent
quarantine, we packed our bags and came here in the remote countryside to the old house of my friend's
father.

Alexandra said it is a bit like Boccaccio's Decameron, only that there are just two of us. I told her that to
me it seems more like we are two criminals running just escaped from prison. My friend jokingly scolded
me: “Come on Daria! We have just arrived; you cannot already sink into a bad mood!”. I wanted to tell
her aout on the sofa and watch a good movie, but there was no TV in that house. There was only an old
radio, but the only channel that worked was the news channel. As if that were not enough, there was no
service and therefore our phones had the same usefulness as a toothless comb.

Alexandra thought it was better this way: "We will detoxify a bit from all these electronic devices!" she
said cheerfully. In my opinion it was just annoying, because I had the bad feeling that boredom would
soon come to keep us company for the next few weeks and I hate being bored.

In the end we pulled out of an old drawer, in which there was more dust than anything else, a deck of
cards and rummaging a bit here and there in the palace of our minds, we remembered the rules and played
a few games. After the fifth time I won, my friend said she no longer felt like it and went to bed reading
Dostoevsky's The Demons. She offered me one of the many books she had brought, but the choice ranged
from Dostoevsky, to Tolstoy, Joyce, Austen, up to Bronte and other such stuff. In short, all lovely and
easy books to read before going to bed.

I am used to sleeping in complete darkness to rest better and have good dreams. When I was little, I was
convinced that dreams were like stars: clear, bright and visible only in the dark. Then my mother told me
that the stars shine thanks to the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium, which "explodes" and produces
their intense brightness, not thanks to the dark, but I kept thinking that in the deepest darkness I could
sleep better and we know what psychological effects certain beliefs have ...

Unfortunately, Alexandra likes to read late and sometimes falls asleep with books still in her hands. So,
the abatjour first remained on until after one o'clock because my friend was busy with her Demons and
then because she had fallen asleep and I had now fallen into an unpleasant half-sleep without being able
to really wake up to turn off the light.
Nevertheless, the following morning we were both in a good mood, even if Alexandra was perhaps a little
fresher. After breakfast we went out and observed the various types of flowers that were blooming at that
time. We sat down on the grass, which was a really bad idea, as it was all wet and within seconds, we had
soaked pants. However, it was a memorable experience: for the first time we heard silence. Not that
nothing was to be heard, there was the rustle of leaves caressed by the wind, the chirping of birds and the
hum of some busy insects, but still the silence occupied a large space. It was the silence of the world, or
rather its noise that we never hear because it is always covered by the sounds that we human beings
produce.

It was a strange feeling because it was different from being in a room with others all silent, knowing that
outside the noise of life goes on. Everything was still, indeed it seemed that humanity was still as if
someone had clicked on "stop" in the playback of a video, while the world, the earth, was more alive than
ever and seemed to slowly regain possession of itself.

"It feels like the calm before the storm." Alexandra said poetically. "Or after the storm." I answered and
she smiled: “It wouldn't be bad. It would mean that the worst is already over”. I shrugged doubtfully: "A
storm can be followed by another and another.". My friend gave me a playful push on the shoulder:
"Come on, that's just a way of saying".

Then she inspired the fresh morning air. When she does this, I know that at least for the next three hours I
cannot count on her attention because when she takes a deep breath, she says that she collects the scents
of inspiration and then she starts writing for hours. She has never made me read much of her works, only
those that she considers of little value, the "simple" writings as she calls them. I never take it personally
because I know that what she doesn't let me read is too hers to understand it.

Usually when Alexandra writes I paint. I don't define myself as a painter because it's not my job and I've
participated in a professional course. I like painting more than writing because in my opinion it's more
real. There are too many thoughts behind a writing. The author chooses words with specific purposes to
manipulate the reader's judgment. It is a bit as if his work consisted in the continuous effort to deceive the
thoughts of those who read the work.

With painting it's different. The painter leaves an image that can be observed and interpreted in any way
by anyone. I consider it a free art. I know that my friend obviously disagrees, but it doesn't bother me.

In the end, however, I did not take out the colors and brushes I had brought with me because I decided to
save my ideas and my inspiration for the long period that I feared was ahead.

The first week passed quickly enough and almost had the appearance of a vacation. In the morning,
during breakfast, we listened to the news on the old radio. It may seem strange because in reality the civil
protection bulletin came out at 6.00 pm every night, but Alexandra and I had decided that it made no
sense to go to bed with our minds crowded with worries and negative thoughts. So, it made more sense to
listen to bad news, because no one was expecting good news, in the morning in order to have the whole
day to forget it.

Until lunch we devoted ourselves to creative activities. Alexandra sometimes wrote and I painted, or we
were simply in the garden enjoying the shy spring sun and the light caresses of the wind.
We had a late lunch and, in the afternoon, we did a bit of sport between laughter and strange yoga
positions that I was trying to teach my best friend. In the evenings we would cook together and played a
few games of cards or chess which we had found rather dusty under our bed. We went to sleep early,
which was better this way since with the abatjour that Alexandra used to read I didn't sleep very well.

At the end of the first week I was relaxed and much less worried than at the beginning of the quarantine,
it seemed that my friend and I could have spent a good time in that cottage in the countryside. It all
seemed really quiet, but I was apparently wrong.

Things began to change on Monday of the second week, as if that day was truly the worst of the seven,
although I obviously never believed it.

Alexandra had been reading for a really long time the night before and so that Monday morning I didn't
feel awake at all when my friend got up at 7.30 in the morning as usual. I turned away and murmured that
I would have joined her for breakfast later, then closed my eyes with a yawn and prepared to return
blissfully to the world of dreams. To my surprise the blanket was yanked off me with a sharp tug and
unpleasant fresh air came to disturb me. It was Alexandra: “Come on get up sleepyhead! We have to keep
our rhythm." she said in a shrill voice that sounded rather unpleasant to my ears. "What rhythm?" I
groaned and took the blanket from her hands. My friend did not let me be and took me by the arms
pulling me from the bed, I struggled: "Alexandra stop it, what are you doing?" I complained, but she
didn't seem to hear the annoyed tone of my voice. Instead she laughed: “Daria come on! Out of the
covers, I'm serious, it's important to keep the rhythm. ". At that point she pulled my arm hard and I fell off
the bed and hit my elbow on the floor.

"That's enough!" I exclaimed in a voice perhaps a little too loud because my best friend looked at me
astonished. "What's the problem if I want to sleep a little longer? Why does it make a difference?!" I
continued angry. Alexandra put her hands on her hips: "We have to follow our own routine and its rules,
to bring at least some normality into this period." she said seriously.

I rolled my eyes and went back to sit cross-legged on the bed. It was absurd, first of all because we had
never talked about rules and apparently the rules we had had been decided by her. "But this is not
normality." I replied with a voice a bit hoarse from the screams from before. Alexandra raised an
eyebrow: “And what should we do? All go out of your mind and let ourselves be carried away by panic?".
I shook my head: “That's the problem, the reason why people are so afraid of sinking into panic. In a new
situation we are afraid of having to make the effort to adapt. We want to live in a static and safe condition
that never changes, but it is impossible! Everything moves, the earth turns, time passes. Normality does
not exist; it is a pure invention of man to describe an environment in which we feel at ease. Maybe this
situation will soon become normal Alexandra! There is no point in continuing to persist in living as
before when things have changed.". My head hurt after this strange outburst so atypical for me.

My best friend looked at me in silence for a few moments, then left the room: "Do as you please." she
said to me and I lay back on the bed, but sleep had slipped from my fingers like fine sand of a beach and
therefore there was nothing but a bitter taste in my mouth.

The calm that Alexandra had perceived on our first day in the country cottage had truly turned out to be
the calm before the storm. It wasn't that we avoided each other, we just talked less and there was little
laughter or light arguments in our speeches. We played a lot of chess because it gave us a reason to talk
little and think a lot. Whoever won did not exalt and the loser did not complain, we just started the next
game.

Meanwhile, the situation in the rest of the country around us was not improving and the crease between
Alexandra's eyebrows seemed to be getting more pronounced day by day, I knew she was worried.

I think she felt like she was imprisoned because she really spent an exaggerated time writing, bent over
her papers like a specialist examining an ancient relic. On the other hand, strangely, I did not feel a
recluse, but simply very bored. Perhaps it was because I knew I was not the only one, but only one of
many others to experience the same situation. It is more difficult to desire or envy something that no one
has and at the time that thing was the much beloved freedom.

I painted much slower than usual, enjoying every movement of the brush on the canvas and taking long
pauses between one section and another. I often lay down on the lawn and spent hours contemplating the
clouds and their shapes, a bit like children do.

One day I was painting a small picture until late in the evening. Not because it was particularly
demanding, but simply because it was my last canvas and I really didn't want to finish it.

I heard sobs coming from the living room below, so I took advantage of the opportunity to extend the
painting time and abandoned brushes and paints to go down the stairs.

Alexandra sat on the old sofa with her legs crouched and cried silently as she stared at a spider
descending with an invisible thread from the ceiling. I said nothing, but sat down next to her and put my
arm around her shoulders. I have never been good at consoling people and so I spent a few moments in
silence wondering what to say, we had talked little for days.

It was my friend who broke the silence. She sighed and wiped away her tears with the back of her hand.
“You know when all this started, I thought I was really lucky to be able to come here. Away from
everyone and safe. Now I don't know what's best anymore. Being away from everyone, but alone or being
with everyone else and always having to be careful. At least if you are close you can console each other."
She said.

I stroked her shoulder as new tears began to flow. "I am here to console you." I reassured her and she
leaned her head against mine.

I only said it because it was my duty as a best friend, not because the turmoil of recent days had suddenly
disappeared. Alexandra knew this too, but in that brief moment it didn't matter because it wasn't a
priority. It was just the two of us, it was like we were just the two of us and the rest of the world and
destroying each other was a bad solution.

That night Alexandra did not read for the first time, she immediately turned off the abatjour and fell into a
restless sleep and I, who for the first time could have enjoyed the quiet darkness that enveloped us, did
not sleep. I had my eyes closed, but my mind was more awake than ever, it seemed to require my
attention as a child does with its mother and so I got lost in complicated reasoning and ancient memories.

The next morning Alexandra did not wake up at 07.30 exactly as she had down every day before and I
silently went downstairs to the kitchen to have breakfast. My friend joined me shortly after: "Why didn't
you wake me up?" she whispered a bit annoyed, but not putting too much emphasis on the accusatory
tone.

I was really tired, but I still finished my painting that morning and this left me with an annoying
melancholy. I also considered covering everything in white to be able to start over, but then I told myself
that it would be an offense to the painting I had just finished.

That evening at dinner Alexandra made me read one of her writings. It was the story of a prince who falls
in love with a warrior, but their love was forbidden because the king would never allow his son to marry
someone who was not of his rank and so the two lovers go away and spend their life wandering around
happily. It was rather trivial and I knew it was certainly not one of her best works, since she had made me
read it.

I understood why only when we had already finished eating. The prince, the warrior and their love had
nothing to do with it, they weren't important, what Alexandra wanted to talk about was going away. She
really was a writer, I thought with a sigh.

"I think if the situation doesn't improve, we should leave." she told me. I tilted my head a little confused:
"And where would we go?" I asked. “Well away. In short, we are lucky, we can return to our country. ".

I raised an eyebrow: "It's a pandemic, the whole world is involved." I pointed out. She shrugged: “Some
places more and some less. In our country the situation is not that bad." she continued.

I thought for a moment, then said: "Alexandra, we are in our country." My friend gave a dry laugh: "Since
when have you felt so much love for Italy? You have always seen it as a prison since childhood." she
answered sarcastically. I replied in the same tone: “Since when have you looked down on it so much?
Ever since you were a child you have always seen Italy as a magical country. ".

My friend shook her head bitterly: “The magic is fading, Daria, don't you notice? We can escape from all
this; it is not our nation. ".

I almost laughed, the situation was too ridiculous: “It's not about a state, it's about the people, they make a
place you belong to, not the borders of a nation! We have no one in "our" country, it is nothing more than
our origin. It is all those we met on the street, at school in our daily life, some more or less present, who
forged our existence. And all these people are experiencing the same thing in this country and I will
experience it with them not because we are of the same nationality, but because I share with them a
reality that binds us all. " I tried to explain, but I knew Alexandra wouldn't understand.

The speech ended there and fueled the heavy silence between us.

In the following weeks nothing changed and I almost fell into the illusion that time had really stopped, the
pandemic was really becoming normal.

I remembered when I was reading The Betrothed and how I had thought I to be lucky to live in an age
when there could never have been great epidemics like those of the plague. I realized that it was not true
because man had not become smarter, they had simply discovered new things, but in front of an unknown
situation the reactions were the same. Humanity lived in a sea of doubts, prejudices and hypotheses, but
everything seemed blurred to the eye and a solution seemed far away.
The more the days passed, the more the lack of words between Alexandra and I bothered me and I felt
almost a bit guilty for not having the courage or the desire to talk to her. So, I decided to give her a
surprise, a kind of gift as an excuse and an offer of peace.

In a room of the house that was used as a deposit for old furniture and objects there was a semi-peeling
wall. I started my work and removed the last remains of plaster, it was a great effort, but I was animated
by the desire to see my best friend smile.

After that I stared at the wall for almost half an hour. I had decided that I would do a mural for Alexandra
and therefore it seemed right to include her passions and what described her in the painting.

In the end, I found an idea somewhere in the attic of my mind and smiled because it seemed absolutely
perfect.

I began. Brush stroke upon stroke. When I started it was morning and the nice thing about working on a
challenging painting is that as the day goes by you have the opportunity to observe your work under
different lights, as if you were looking at it through different people's eyes. I didn't even stop for lunch,
just took two apples with me to munch while I painted.

I looked with amazement at the images that slowly began to become recognisable on the wall. I had
decided to depict the stars of the universe and in the center, there was a large book in which a hand was
still finishing writing. Planet earth came out of the book and I was sure that Alexandra would surely like
it, because like many other writers, she was sure to contribute with her words to forge the world of us
men and even if I had my doubts about writing, I had to admit it was a nice thing to think about and very
poetic.

When I finished late in the evening, a sparkling euphoria coursed through my body and I found myself
smiling by myself for no reason.

However, I decided to wait until the next morning before showing my friend the mural, as she was
already in bed reading. That night not even the light from the abatjour bothered me and I slept peacefully
and serene.

I've never been superstitious and I don't believe in destiny, but sometimes our minds and hearts seem to
know what's going to happen a few moments after, but I obviously didn't interpret my sudden happiness
as a sign of some kind.

The next morning, we sat at the table to have breakfast still silent. I was already anticipating Alexandra's
reaction in front of my mural that I would have shown her shortly.

My best friend turned on the radio as every morning, but that morning nothing was like the others. The
quarantine was over.

Alexandra and I sat motionless in the kitchen without saying a word and enjoying the effects of what we
heard. I was happy, of course, but I also felt proud for having lived this period with so many people from
all parts of the world, I really felt like a cosmopolitan citizen.

My best friend hugged me eagerly. It was a slightly strange hug, still full of all the words we hadn't said
to each other, but I realized that at that moment it wasn't important because we were living in a historical
moment.
I decided it was time, so I told Alexandra to follow me. I entered the room with a "Ta-daa!" and then I
turned to my friend to see her reaction.

She looked at the mural in silence and for a few moments I misinterpreted her expression as one of
amazement, but then lines formed on her forehead. Alexandra was not happy.

"Why didn't you ask me for permission?" she asked dryly and I initially tried to laugh with her: “Come
on, Alexandra! What surprise would it have been otherwise? " I explained.

"Definitely a less unpleasant surprise." she said dryly and at that moment I felt the mirror of our
friendship crack. It was like many thin, barely visible cracks that will end up completely breaking the
glass and, in that instant, I realized that the glass was really thin.

"This is not your house Daria; you should have asked me first." Alexandra continued undaunted. At that
point I just nodded and walked out of the room.

That evening we silently packed our bags and spoke again only when we left the cottage in the remote
countryside the following day. It was an adieu or maybe a goodbye.

"I will return to our country." my best friend told me: "I miss it.". I thought it would do her good, maybe
she would get to know herself a little better. "I won’t." I replied: "I want to see Italy, all of it, from top to
bottom and I want to see what has changed in this period." I confirmed my choice.

Alexandra nodded: "Once I thought we would go through everything together, through ups and downs." I
realized it was her way of apologizing and I silently accepted it. "You can't face everything with another
person if you don't know how to deal with it alone first." I then said and my friend didn't seem to
understand, but I didn't try to explain it to her, she probably would have understood once she returned to
"our" country.

I hugged her before leaving and a bitter taste remained in my mouth because I realized that I would not
miss it and I felt betrayed by myself because I had believed for so long in a friendship based on nothing.

I smiled to myself. The quarantine had taught me many things and I hoped it would be the same for many
others. Then I thought that in reality nothing really strange had happened and that the same thing had
probably happened to who knows how many other people and this consoled me a little.

After all we were all human, we were all normal.