April 1st

My pearl from deep seas

I am Ivan, originally from Russia, where my life can be defined as an ideal one until a certain moment. My father used to do business with people in Moscow even before I was born. So we lived in a mansion, near Moscow, in the countryside, bathed in friendly sunshine almost 10 months of the year. The winters were either mild or full of snow and bitter frosts, but everything seemed wonderful to me. I have never had grandparents, at least not since I was born, they died a long time ago and, as far as I can tell, both their childhood to me, and it's not much different from mine. But like I said, to a certain extent.sets of grandparents did exactly the same thing my father did. They also lived in a mansion similar to ours and my parents detailed

I spent kindergarten at home with a private educator because I was a sickly child and my parents couldn't afford to send me to a larger group at that young age. I did however have plenty of time to play in the yard with our animals, yes, you should know about me that I love animals. I had 2 ponies, 1 horse, many ducks and many puppies, also an indefinite number of cats, because they were all brought by me.

Every morning, I used to go to school on a bus with my colleagues from my village, not many in number, but every time we played on the way. I had a girlfriend, every morning I would bring her fresh flowers from the yard, and she would offer me a kiss on the cheek. We spent a lot of time together during break time and shared the same bench. Her mother used to put a sandwich in her school bag for me because she liked me quite a lot and probably as a thank you for taking care of Svetlana, because that was my friend's name. We even played on the weekends, because during the week we had too much homework and learning to do to have time to play outside. We played with animals, rode ponies, or just played parents where my kittens were our kids. Sometimes schoolmates would come over, and then we would play more complex, competitive games. In winter, we played in snow, we made snowmen, we went sledging. On those days, my mother would wait for us in the house with hot chocolate and fresh cookies and on warm days she would bring us out lemonade or syrup, and sandwiches, and we would spread a blanket on the ground and pretend we were having a picnic, far away in the woods, and all around us were deer, rabbits, and in the background were only crickets and birds with enchanting calls.

Svetlana's father was my father's co-worker. They used to go together on business trips or all kinds of long or short trips on work.

Until one point when my father kept talking about him having bigger and bigger problems and after that came the end of my first life.

We were in 8th grade, and it was the last day of school, a sunny day when we all wanted to finish classes and go to the lake, swim a little and relax in the sun (that's exactly what we deserved after those awful exams we went through). We were on the bus, yes, we could all still fit, but when we got to the bridge and had to cross it, a bullet came through the window and landed on Svetlana's temple, who was looking out the window, thinking about the end of classes. At that moment, the bus sped up, fearing for all of our lives. I was paralyzed by the time we reached the school, my beautiful friend had fallen into my arms and I just stood and stared at her, listening to the murmur, the last murmur of my darling as she sank into the abyss, further and further away, until I could no longer hear her at all. I was full of blood, but I couldn't move. Her parents and mine were waiting for us at school, they managed to get there before us. Her mother cried so hard and so deeply that I could feel my own tears flowing, even though I couldn't move, and I was sinking somewhere, under the ground or even in the lake. My parents picked me up and carried me home, realizing that I was in no condition to go to class. In fact, all the children were sent home, we were all traumatized and, although it was a sure thing with me, she was my girlfriend, they were all terribly affected by what had happened. I never went to the lake that summer either, I couldn't conceive that such a dear man had been taken away from me, a man I spent 70% of my time with, with whom I laughed, with whom I cried. That summer wasn't like any other summer. My mother gave me access to a study camp in the North and I went there to learn and get used to life without Svetlana.

At the end of the summer, my father started to have problems too, although he never complained, you could see from a distance how sad, how deceived he was, you talked to him, and he was somewhere far away, in another world, in his world that was getting darker and darker, more and more rainy. My mother was beginning to resemble him and I didn't know what to do to help. I haven't gotten over my problem. I had a world, anyway, that in my opinion was like theirs, I felt myself sinking daily since the beginning of the summer but it bothered me deeply that they started to look the same.

The first day of school was extremely unsettling for me. I saw my classmates again and instantly remembered Svetlana and everything that had happened. Nobody seemed well, she was the one who was always in a good mood, always saw the positive side and often made jokes. But now no one knew what to do, what to talk about, they felt anxious and still couldn't accept anything that had happened either.

In one of the days of the first week of school, I didn't know for sure which one, I was going to school. We were all trying to get used to Svetlana's absence, we were beginning to open up more to each other. We started by reporting how the disturbing event made us feel, then its absence, then cry well and finally talk about what we did this summer and basically about us.

When we got to the bridge, I heard a gunshot again, this time, in my right, but it did not hit me but I think it hit something else, because I felt the car shaking aggressively, and then we found ourselves sinking gradually into the huge lake. We were sinking more and more, and I could only feel that feeling I had when Svetlana's mother started to cry after the accident. How I sink into a dark abyss and there is no light to guide me anywhere because it is gone, she flew away and nobody and nothing can watch over me anymore.

I was getting colder and colder, although I was at the beginning of September, the lake seemed to want to come in winter, to scent it with an ice scab, to protect him from the world outside. First I felt my extremities freeze, then every tiny vein pulsing with life in agony. Then something very strange happened. Trying to keep my eyes open seemed to me to see a mermaid. A bedtime mermaid story I was used to and couldn't sleep without until I was 10. Trying to soothe myself, I realized that it wasn't really a real mermaid, it was a bright face like the sun of a hot summer, it was really Svetlana. He approached my window, and then she moved away more and more, coming to the surface. I tried to follow her, I missed her so much that even though my eyes were moist because of the ice-cold water, it was something else, it was a special dampness, a moisture of crying and longing.