Published in Japan - Social interactions and entertainment - 12 Nov 2023 13:08 - 0
"I see a dark-skinned girl with long curly hair coming out of the container. She looks like Botticelli's angel. It emerges from the garbage like a small Venus from a s and the murky sea foam spewed up by the city.
The little girl says to her mother: "There is no..."
Are there shorter and scarier words in our language than the eternal "no"? That word takes too long.
The mother says: "Look a little more..." and the child disappears into the garbage again.
I stand stunned by the sight. A friend of mine, himself poor, never throws leftover bread in the garbage. He puts them in a plastic bag and lays them next to the container. The bread magically disappears as soon as he enters the house. Hunger has four eyes.
Hungry for centuries, we buy more bread than we need. And then we throw it away. Bread in the garbage is not a good sight. He senses evil. And evil is coming.
Our elders taught us to pick up a piece of bread that fell on the ground, blow on it, kiss it and cross ourselves. I once saw Princess Elizabeth pick up a piece of bread that fell on her, kiss it and be baptized. A good, forgotten custom, full of respect for bread. Forgotten, like the old word - endowment.
Old Belgrade merchants, declared after the war hardened capitalists, left behind endowments. Today there are many richer than them, and again, nobody leaves anything behind. They huddled together and were silent.
Ours, who succeeded in the white world: oilmen, bankers, industrialists... no one to give the city a fountain, a public building, a sculpture, a scholarship, a hot meal for the poor... Who will they leave all that to? To your children? But it is known: there is always a generation that acquires, and another generation that wastes. No one will take anything with them to the next world, once they leave.
All religions were lost, except the religion of acquisition.
And if they kidnapped, stole, exploited, cheated, old traders, controversial businessmen of the time, they left it all to their fathers, to somehow redeem a sinful soul. What should we leave behind? What are our endowments? Maybe you should start with something small, almost unimportant? The world is not improved by grand gestures, but by little things. Maybe, to begin with, you should leave old bread in a plastic bag next to the container? Two wilted hot dogs, half drunk yogurt? Worn out shoes? What a time, such endowments! They can fit in a plastic bag just fine.
I leave her next to the container and turn around after a few steps. She disappeared! That small endowment of ours used to be called sevap.
What is sevap? That's when you do a good deed and remain unknown. Someone's gratitude would feed your vanity. Old gentlemen, in overturned overcoats, go around the markets and collect cabbage leaves, a few rolled potatoes, a forgotten carrot, two leaves of lettuce... They turn over containers and take out newspapers and illegal cigarettes. They are called - garbage collectors!
In the end, I remembered the wonderful thought that my late friend, Father Mitrofan, from Hilanda, liked to repeat: "Ours is only what we give to others."
And a dark-skinned girl with sparkling eyes comes out of the garbage again and says to her mother: "No!" Despite everything, beautiful and smiling, she comes out like a trademark for hope. At that moment, someone, who knows why, gets a lump in their throat."Support
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