What Started as a Sunny Day in the Archipelago
It was so heavy. I was standing in the red barn-looking repository,
looking up at the stocked jibs. They were numbered and sorted in trays with the
same number. There were 30 trays and 29 jibs on the wall. One in my fathom, and
it was heavy to my spindly arms.
I joined the others and walked anticipative down the gravel road to the
emerald green water. The sunshine floated thru the pine-trees and heated our
bare skin.
The only thing audible was the wind and the sound of the halyard and
shackles moving against the masts of the boats and the yawps of the camp
instructors. It was a good day for sailing.
We pulled the cockboat out
the harbor. For the older children it took about ten minutes. While it for us
took so long that the sun stood higher in the sky than when we began by the
time we finally slipped out in the fairway.
I lost track of time, as you
easily do while on the sea, but according to the position of the sun it was
somewhere around lunchtime when the bow of a grey metal ship suddenly appeared
behind a leafy island. At first sight it was not that much larger than the occasional
freighters that passes through the area but I stared to realize its size as it became
less and less hidden behind the island. Well over a hundred meters long it drew
everyone´s attention. At first we were amazed but when one of the battleship-cannons
suddenly fired everyone became terrified.
...
I woke up in a hospital bed,
lone in bright white painted room. There where red flowers on side table. They
matched with my bloody sheets. Next to flowers lay the local newspaper with the
group-photo of my sailing camp on the first page. It said: “World war has come
to Italy, children first to die.”
Skrevuppgift i skolan och tänka att jag lika gärna kunde publicera den här
