Romance about Immigration

ed in several forms and while I put the supplies in the trunk, a fierce, albeit hushed dispute reaches my ears.

- We may!

- Maybe not, she might be offended!

- She won’t, she is one of us!

- What if not?

- What if and when it will be a good time?

I sit and ask what is the dilema that bothers my girlfirends and whetehr I can help.

- Oh, well, darn, fine, we know that it is not standard, but if do not find it offensive, we wanted to ask why you emigrated - two people with professions, clearly some status as well, and just like that to get up and come to our village? I mean even to the country!

- No offense at all, but before I answer, tell me what you think when you are going into a public toilet?

- Hmmm, if it is fairly urgent, we don’t think at all!

- And whether there is toilet paper in the booth, you don’t think?

- No, why, if it is finished in one booth you can always go into the next. (Short stony silence) You mean that toilet paper is not found just like that? That all may be gone? Not even been put there? (Grave silence stretches.) God, we never thought about something we always have. Basic comfort, actually.

- In fact, that is why I emigrated. I wanted to not think about the basics.

- And you were right! Let's go for coffee! Just do not say that coffee and donuts are not found on every corner either!

- They are not. At least not at every one. But there are boza with banichka.

- Oh, tell us about what are these boza with banichka?

- Girls, they are not worth emigration, though I had that idea in Skopje over a boza with a ball of ice cream in the glass!

- The lass-behind-the-counter, please give me four large coffees and drop inside each a ball of ice cream, here my pal tells some salivating stories! And four donuts, them with no ice cream, please!

The Cossack Cemetery and the Italian Gravediggers

 

Have you seen a cemetery with a program? And I have! Each year, the cemetery next door, represented by its Board, sends advertising leaflet in which carefully describes what remarkable activities can be experienced out in the park. Besides the main activity there you can watch rare birds, can visit the monuments of prominent citizens in different sectors of the different confessions, study the exhibition of funerary artifacts, or simply picnic in summer or ski in winter (the cemetery is on a hill). The management also cordially apologizes if this message finds you in a period of mourning and sincerely sympathizes with you. Because to me personally slalom between gravestones does not seem especially attractive alternative for leisure time in winter, the brochure automatically goes to the basket for recycling.

Easter is approaching, this year it is too early, we will probably need to grow lentils for some green background for colored eggs. My colleagues take pity and let me on week-long