James Turrell - The Joy of Sensing

Sour Times - Fragment - Ana in Her Own Words

Ana left the room somehow blurry and indistinct. On the top cabinet she kept, there were clean and clear, the glasses.

Back home she was a pretty girl, boys asked her to movies. 'I had a boyfriend' then 'the person from a modelling agency showed up'. He stopped her in front of the gym class and talking, he opened his wallet loaded with money and cards, showed her ID,  his mustache darker: ‘I promise you, you have everything going for you! There are many, many beautiful girls, 'but there’s something special ...’  and with feline knowledge, slid the card back into his leather wallet.

Four more weeks only, she decided to take the plane. The plane flew high up, height of her dreams, pink summer clouds reflecting softly on her white silky scarf and pearls...she was high up there.
At the airport, man with a basketball cap, cardboard under his arm, she saw her name. After formalities, he pushed her in the back of a dark window car. The other man with gold rings and 'gold bracelet with an ‘Y’ on it', pulled her. She did not understand. ‘Another virgin, Feo, I don’t know where Pauly finds them, he’s the best!’ She fought, screemed and scratched.
‘I should-of-know!!! Feo stop the fuckin’ car! We have a job to take care of over here’,  he said with a fake Italian accent. 'And I fainted '.

The following two or more years were locked into her brain, 'they gave me drugs and I took them'  the only thing she could remember was one day, day she escaped and a man, the guard who turned his back, leaving the door open. 'I think his name was Nick or Nicky'.  She rushed out in the traffic, light blinding, car screeching, piercing sound of siren she was hoping and waiting for for years.

'In the news tonight, the driver of a white Mercedes was unable to avoid hitting a woman who appeared out of nowhere and seems to have jumped in front of the car. The driver was the one who called the ambulance, the condition of the woman is unknown at this time, will continue to follow the story for you'.

At the hospital, 'all were very nice' trying to make her eat and sleep and while she started eating gradually and getting used to the light, she could not speak for two months. 'My voice was not coming out'.
They examined her and concluded that there was nothing basically wrong with her except for the many bruises and cuts; police came with many questions but after a while, at doctor’s orders, they stopped asking so that she can recover.
‘I can’t go back like this’, were her first words in two months.

- Fragment by Ioana Lostun 2013