It is not a bad dream - Alberto

In the middle of nowhere, but in my nowhere. In the middle of a valley, an unknown valley surrounded by unknown mountains. I see myself in this environment, this apparently faraway environment which is not so because I am part of it and it is also part of me.

I see myself next to “the old grandad”. A really old tree that has been there since ever. It has been part of the village since the village was not even a villge. Once, all the men in the village tried to embrace “the old grandad” all the way around putting all their arms together but they couldn't. It was too big for them. “The old grandad” was their protector ad they had respect towards it.

I used to live next to “the old grandad”. It used to be my protection from the heavy wind. In the hot summer afternoons, its uncountable branches used to cover my house, keeping it apart form the extreme heat and the dryness.

Everyone knew “the old grandad”. It was part of people's lives. Everyday it was surrounded by several people who used to come to relieve their thoughts, to tell the tree their most sincere secrets. They used to come to listen to the advice that “the old grandad” wanted to share with them through the branches, through the sound of the leaves and the birds that used to live within it. They used to come to feel happy.

But everything changed when “the others” came. “The old grandad” was embraced. Actually, embrace is not the appropriate word. It was apprehended, but it was not so by human arms, but by iron chains. “The others” wanted to take “the old grandad” out of the ground. “The others” said that where the tree was situated was, in fact, the best place to set “the baby”: an enormous building which would become the centre of communication for the whole area. Some of those who used to come to tell the “the old grandad” their secrets helped “the others” to get rid of the tree. “It is part of progress”, they said. To get rid of the tree was not an easy task. They managed to take it out of the ground. They even burn it, but they could not pull out all the roots, those antique roots. Those roots that were part of their hearts and those roots that would be inside themselves forever.

Now everything is different. Nothing protect us. My house is where it used to be, but actually it it not that place anymore because that place is a completely different one now. The wind comes through all the doors and windows. The sun's radiation is reflected off the walls of “the baby” so in the summer, staying in my house is like staying in the middle of the sun.

People keep on coming to the place they used to come, although it is a completely different place. They do not come happy anymore. They come to work in the communication centre but they do not communicate anything at all. They are all sad. They do not feel comfortable sharing their thought as they used to do.

I don't know why “the others” behave like that, why they do those sort of things... I cannot understand... I don't know what is happening...

--He is waking up!

The doctors told me that I had been in the hospital for five years in a deep dream but that now I was awake again and I could meet my family. I was lost but I kind of undertood the situation. I had had an accident and had lost consciousness for five years. It was all a nightmare.

At that moment, my only thought was to go outside the hospital and see my dear village, with its nature and all its people.. but I couldn't find it. What I saw was not the place where I used to live. It was full of buildings, cars, full of people. People who were all together but everyone on their own...

I realised that everything I saw in that long nightmare was what had actually happened. It was not a nightmare but the reality. I felt sorry. I felt angry at “the others” for having done what they done. I felt angry at myself because I was part of “the others” because I did nothing to change the situation.


27 March 2008. Environmental Day, UWC in Mostar