#5 JUST MY IMAGINATION

After two days, she already had a new work. She did not look like 17. She looked like at least18 or even more. Without make-up. It was the significant difference, if you try to get a job in a point where you have to be an adult. Furthermore, although she was not 18 on the paper, she made such a good impression and she got it. She had to take care of an old lady. It is not a normal case in Poland to pay somebody to take care of your grandma. Mostly people do not have enough money and live with their parents or with their kids and in this way you don’t spend money for such extravagant things. However, there were some people, who became rich after the change of system and earned enough money and they did not want to show it and cause envy by their best friends and the beloved tax office. Nevertheless, they needed supervision for their weakest family members.

This work was illegal, but it was not a problem for Mia. She needed money. In addition, that was not the only reason why she needed this job. Looking after the “grandma Zofia” was easy. Zofia, an old woman, was over 80 years old and was almost a vegetable. She could understand what you were talking to her, but she was not able to answer. She just tried to communicate using her eyes and sometimes it worked. It worked when she wanted to hire Mia. Mia was a young girl and had this energy of young people, which has to be stolen from them, when the old ones don’t get it in another way. Zofia’s eyes were so enthusiastic as if she would get too much drugs. This work was not so hard. It was all about sitting there, talking with Zofia, reading to Zofia, listening to the music or any other form of spreading some young energy in the room. Besides, Mia should just come 2-3 times a week and in the case of emergency there was in a second another team of people who should take care of the old lady.

Grandma Zofia had the hands of an old person, full of traces from the past. They were delicate and warm. And she always wanted to keep something in her hands. She used to say earlier that she wants to feel life as long as she was still living. Grandma Zofia`s hair was white as snow. And short like women used to have it back in the 20ies. Mia used to comb it like that and Mia even brought a hair slide in style of the early 20ties. Grandma Zofia was always very pleased when Mia was around. What grandma Zofia was even more pleased about was when Mia talked. Mia’s voice was like medicine.

Mia usually just talked about what she saw in the city or read books aloud and grandma Zofia was pleased to hear this young, friendly voice like a drug for her willingness to live. The old lady thought then that God was maybe busy, but sometimes he sent some extraordinary people to be met in life.

Mia used to read aloud. She could imagine better what the book was about. She could imagine better then people from Sienkiewicz’s trilogy, the favourite book of grandma Zofia`s. It was about knights from the 18th century who were fighting with swords and honour, who always followed their codex and never broke the rules. Mia could almost feel the green meadows of Poland and Ukraine and feel the wind on her face, the wind that brought her news about results of battles and complicated fates of the main heroes.

She was almost bleeding like the main characters and she was very enthusiastic when they were happy. It was a strange feeling and hard to describe - how do you describe a feeling anyway - but Mia was almost a part of a book she was reading aloud. Moreover, grandma Zofia liked to hear the emotions Mia had apparently in her voice. As she was reading aloud, she forgot about the whole world, everything from her surrounding was further away than things about she was reading. She had an impression to know these landscaped she never had seen and to know such knights she never had met. Mia did not know since when she got this gift, but as far as she could remember her life, it had always been there.



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