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| Vlad Levente Viski |
The CEU Weekly editorial team is happy to announce that the winner of the Creative Writing Contest is Vlad Levente Viski, Vice President at Central European University's Student Union and MA student in the two year program at the Department of Political Science. We want to thank all five authors who contributed with a story and our readers who participated in the voting process. All five stories can be read online at www.ceuweekly.blogspot.hu. The audience award is a 5000 HUF coupon to the CEU Bookshop.
Vlad Levente Viski: Death of an Immigrant
Nothing predicted that day. M was just paid and she was heading to the closest Western Union to send money home. She had been working in Italy for seven years now and her children were back home in Romania. Her story wasn’t unusual; it was quite the norm. Millions of parents working abroad and millions of children left behind, forced to raise themselves and learn self-discipline and financial responsibility. After a week of work, M had one hundred and fifty euros. On her way to the bank she decided to stop by the clothing bin, as she always did. She would always find good clothing that Italians had thrown away and that could fit her kids. Quite often Eastern treasure is repackaged Western trash. She approached the bin, a blue plastic cylinder with a small hole on top. M knew the different bins in the neighborhood, so she decided to go to the one that seemed luckiest; it was her birthday, after all. “Thank God they didn’t empty it yet!” she said to herself. Friday was trash pick-up day and she had to rush so she could get there before the garbage trucks.
M climbed on top of the bin and started scooping for the good stuff. She reached with her arm inside the bin and took out a pair of old, dark red jeans. She examined the pants, saw a few holes and threw them on the ground. The next item was a dirty military jacket, too big for anyone she knew… another pair of pants, an ugly sweater, some high heels, nothing valuable. “Damn it!” She reached deeper inside and her arm was moving around the bin like a shark looking for a victim. Still nothing. Trying to take out all of these clothes really gave her a rash, so she decided to go deeper.
Slowly, she stuck her head through the small orifice. She was a small, short woman, so she knew she could fit. Now she could see inside the whole treasure chest. Still nothing interesting… She was already getting anxious, throwing everything around, already scooping and twirling everything inside like a baker with some precious dough. All sorts of colors were flying around, different smells, and lots of dust. It was all almost hypnotic to watch. She decided to take a last leap of faith and slowly glided her body into the bin. She was now literally inside a trashcan. Desperately, she started looking around, reaching inside the pile of clothes, taking out different accessories, trying out different outfits, making plans. It was like watching a kid in a toy store or a hungry woman in an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Despite all of the hard work, M wasn’t too lucky that day. She set aside the few items she had chosen and decided it was over…that her efforts were in vain. She tried to open the bin’s small hole. She pushed, she pulled, nothing. “What the hell?” Her exit was stuck. The bin had an automatic door, you could push it from the outside, but you couldn’t open it from the inside. “No! No! No! What am I going to do now?” M started screaming, pounding the walls of the bin. From the outside, no one could hear anything, the bin was completely sealed. M started crying hysterically. “Ajutor! Ajutooooor!” No one could hear her scream, no one was around, she was all alone. No one would even look for her, maybe her boss.
Half an hour later, the oxygen was running low. Maybe the trash pick-up truck would come soon, to save her? Maybe someone would throw some of their clothes inside the bin and hear her? M heard voices, she was too weak to scream anymore, her vision was foggy, her voice too low, her brain was slowly shutting down. “Help! Aiutame! Ajutor!” Still nothing. She was now laying on a pile of clothes, she was breathing hard and thinking of her kids. Bogdan, her younger boy came to her and kissed her on the cheek. “Mami, mami, te iubesc!” The heart beats were louder and louder, the lungs were hearting, the head was spinning, her sight was blurrier and blurrier. She looked at the money she had to send home and started crying. Her cry wasn’t loud, it was more like a whipping. No more energy to fight, no more will to shout. A small trace of blood coming out of her nose reached her already foamy lips. Her whole mouth was already full of white foam, she couldn’t control her tongue anymore, her eyes were rolling, her body was already throbbing. Only if she could get one last breath of fresh air, one last sip of cold water… Her dark face, her missing teeth, her unexceptional eyes, her poorly cut hair, her scars covering all of the body were creating the impression that an animal, not a human, was dying.
Two days later, the trash truck came to pick up the bin. The workers took the whole bin, dumped it inside the truck and took her body to the largest recycling center in the city. Mixed with clothes, plastic bottles, shoes and paper, no one ever even noticed her there. Her body was mixed with other items, chopped into pieces and delivered to Italians. She wasn’t even worthy of a proper funeral.
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