„Is life always like this?"
„Will it ever change?"
„Will it stay the same forever?"
Those questions have always echoed in my head. Maybe it's because I've been asking them for as long as I can remember.
I slowly opened my eyes. The ceiling of my room was the first thing I saw — the same ceiling that had covered my head my entire life. My head felt heavy, but my body was telling me to get up.
"Maybe I should go outside for a bit," I muttered to myself, reaching for the doorknob of my door.
The door creaked softly as I pulled it open. Wooden stairs groaned under my footsteps as I descended to the ground floor.
"Are you awake, son?" My mother's voice came from the kitchen, warm as always. "It's unusual for you to sleep during the day. Are you okay?" she added, stepping toward me.
I stopped halfway down the stairs and smiled.
"Is it really that strange that I'm taking a nap during day?"
"No, no," she laughed. "If you say so. I was just worried — you know how I am."
I made my way toward the front door, and it struck me then how much happier she seemed today than usual. I looked around the room — the furniture, the kitchen she had come from, the sofa where my sit, the table where we ate — but none of it drew my attention as much as she did. Her smile could have been seen from a thousand meters away.
She was my mother. The woman who had always been there for me, who raised me from the day I was born. Her brown hair fell to the middle of her stomach. Her eyes sparkled with a happiness so bright it was almost blinding. She stood around 164 centimeters tall, wearing the sweater I had once tried to sew myself — an attempt that had ended in spectacular failure. I hadn't expected her to ever wear it. Honestly, I hadn't even expected it to look like a sweater.
I had thought sewing was easy, since I watched her make clothes from wool every day. She offered me the chance to try once, and it ended miserably. Every thread I tried to join tangled with another, and what I produced in the end looked like nothing recognizable at all.
And yet here she was, wearing it. Somehow she had taken my disaster and turned it into something beautiful — adding it as a decoration on a white sweater she had made herself. Seeing it on her brought a smile to my face without me even deciding to smile.
That was one of many things my mother could do. But the thing she did best was bring smiles to other people.
"You look... kind of in the mood today, aren't you?" I asked.
"I am!" Her smile widened. "It's a good day today, isn't it?"
"I guess so?" I turned back toward the front door. "I'm going outside for some fresh air."
As I reached for the handle, I noticed something missing. I looked back into the room.
My father wasn't here. Maybe he was outside? But I heard nothing from the street.
"Where is Father?"
"He's still at work," she replied.
"At work? At this time?"
"Yes." Her voice went quieter. "To be precise, he said he was going to the Kinuki Bridge."
"KINUKI BRIDGE?!" I stared at her. "But isn't that the bridge that—"
"Yes." She cut me off before I could finish. "It's the bridge that separates us from those monsters. The Trolls who have been terrorizing us for over three hundred years. I despise them. When will they stop? What did we do to deserve this?" The happiness on her face faded as she spoke, replaced by something heavier.
I shouldn't have asked about the bridge.
Her smile had disappeared completely. She stood looking at me, concern settling over her face, and her eyes — which had been so bright a moment ago — slowly began to fill with tears. She didn't notice at first, but the moment the first one fell she looked at the floor, then touched her face with her right hand.
"What is this? Why are they coming?" She wiped them off with the sleeve of her sweater.
I stepped toward her and pulled her into a hug.
"Don't worry, Mother. Please don't cry — it doesn't suit you. Everything is going to be okay. I'm here with you, there's nothing to cry about. It's just work. Father will come back, he always does. He'll come home like he does every day and the three of us will eat dinner together and talk about everything like we always have. He's safe over there, and you know it — he has soldiers with him, and if anything were to happen he'd be evacuated immediately. He has a family waiting for him at home. He's not going anywhere. So please, Mom stop crying. Wipe those tears away and don't let me see you like this again. Beacuse if I do, I'll get mad at you."
She looked at me with a curious, confused expression, as if she couldn't quite process what she had just heard. But at least she had stopped crying. She just stood there looking at me, and after a long moment she said quietly, "You'll get mad at me... you?"
"I was joking," I said, exhaling with relief. "After all, how am I supposed to make a crybaby stop crying? Just look at you — over thirty years old, crying like a child over who knows what." I teased her lightly, hoping to annoy her just enough to push the sadness out.
Her face went through a sequence of emotions — sadness, happiness, annoyance, and then embarrassment, all within a few seconds. But my mother was never an easy target. She collected herself and looked straight at me.
"You know, I remember very well who else cried like a baby. Who was it again? Oh yes — it's you, Lazar."
I felt the floor shift under me slightly.
"I remember someone who cried when they tried to separate him from me. And I also remember someone who cried when he had a little accident. Who was that again? Oh yes, still you."
I turned toward the door immediately, staring at the handle. "What would other people think if they saw you like that?"
I stood there for a full minute, unable to turn around. The embarrassment was total.
Then I felt her arms wrap around me from behind. Her warmth pressed against my back, gentle and unhurried, and I felt her lean into me. Not heavily, just enough to be there. I had a feeling I could have stayed like that for as long as she needed.
"Thank you, son," she whispered. "Thank you for cheering me up." Then came a pause. "When did you get taller than me?"
"I guess I did, Mom. I grow a little every day, that's just how it goes."
"Don't think you're all grown up now, old man." I was looking at the door handle when she said it.
"If someone had told me that my son would be the one comforting me instead of the other way around... I would never have believed them."
"I don't know if you meant to say that out loud, but I heard it," I said.
I turned my head and found her smiling with her eyes closed, still leaning against my back as if I were a pillow she had decided to keep.
After a moment she stepped back. "Didn't you say you wanted some fresh air? Come on, my crybaby go on." She patted me on the back, then smiled.
I turned and opened the front door again.
"Hey, Lazar."
But her voice stopped me once more.
I turned around.
"Come here for a moment."
I closed the door and walked back to her, confused.
She looked at me for a few seconds, then asked with a particular expression she always wore when she was hiding something.
"Do you know what day it is today?"
Despite the expression, the smile behind it was real. She had calmed down. Those bright eyes were sparkling again, and I wasn't sure what was happening.
"Today is January 6th, 1862/8."
"Hmm... I don't know?" I said, even though I had already guessed.
"Today is January 6th, 1862/8. The Giving Day." She said it with quiet pride.
I knew it.
"It's the day parents give gifts to their children, an old custom."
"Wait here." She turned and hurried to the kitchen. A few moments later she came back.
"Close your eyes," she said. "Put your hands over them, come on, no peeking!" I felt her gently move my arms up over my face and hold them there. "Keep them like that for a moment."
A few seconds passed.
"You can open them now."
I lowered my arms and opened my eyes.
She was standing in front of me, holding a small box in both her palms. It was smaller than her hands, wrapped in red and white. She held it out.
"I hope you like it."
I took it, turned it over once, then began to unwrap it. The red-and-white paper fell away. Inside was another box, this one wrapped in blue. I pulled that wrap off too.
Inside was a piece of jewelry.
An earring — thin, silver, shaped like a chain. Three chains linked together, one after the other.
"Your father and I thought about this for a long time," she said.
"We went from place to place trying to decide, and then we found this in a store window. Your father was actually the one who spotted it first. He's the one who said we should get it for you." She looked at me. "We didn't know what to choose for you. You never ask for anything, so we were never sure what you'd actually want. I hope we got it right."
I looked at the earring for a moment, still holding it in my hand.
Then I stepped forward and hugged her gently.
"Thank you, Mother. I really like it."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It's great."
"But just because I never ask for anything doesn't mean I don't want anything."
She was so happy that her eyes were practically glowing again.
"Come here, let me put it on for you," she said in a rush, joy being everywhere on her face. "It'll hurt for a second, but it'll pass quickly."
I handed her the earring and sat down in front of her.
"Here we go" she said, and I felt a brief, sharp pain as she pierced my right ear. Then she carefully placed the earring and went to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a small mirror in her hand.
I looked at my reflection.
It was unusual. But it suited me. It matched with my hair somehow. I smiled, thanked her again, hugged her once more, and stepped back.
"I'm going out now, okay?"
She smiled at me, still holding the mirror.
I put on my boots and stepped outside.
Snow covered everything. The air was cold and clear, the sky pale and open. The path in front of the house was clear, but the rooftops around it were all white, chimneys sending up thin trails of smoke.
Two paths lay ahead. One turning toward the village, the other leading left toward the forest. I took the left one, passing a wooden bench and one house along the way, until I reached the gate that marked the edge of the village.
I stepped through it.
The path inside was less clear than in the village, marked with countless tracks, human and animal both disappearing into the endless white of the softwood forest.