CJ Word Interpretation

Feather

Drifting, floating, and spiralling downward, helpless and utterly defenceless. A strong gust supports it, encourages it and pushes it to new levels. This is what makes us soar.

It brings good news, gently landing to a heart. Who is your wind? Where will you go? I think the feather really does not know. As soon as it is detached from a birds skin, all these questions become irrelevant. Have you seen a feather float in the air? It is a curious thing…

The city where I live in right now, is very windy and wind often brings feathers with it. Today I just saw one, a grey and white feather. Since I had some free time I decided to follow it for a while. It went where the wind blew and I was expecting to see unhappiness and frustration… But no! The grey and white feather was so joyful and carefree in its seeming purposeless existence… The feathers’ lifestyle has discomforted me… It goes against all what I have learned… Am I wasting my limited time obsessing over the purpose of life?

(Word interpretation by Emily McQuade, Olimpija Hristova Zaevska, Drivalda Delia, Doris Shehu and Alvita Delia)

Train

The train was about to leave the small station lost between the mountains and the sea and my thoughts suspended between the earth and the sky. Destination: the infinity and the unknown. The big iron machine loosened the chords of my mind and carried me away like the leaves in the wind. A ride that leads to the end of the land - down there where it all begins.

Time inside was like vacuum. Everything seemed possible... She was watching a man who was sitting on the doorstep with his legs hanging outside. His face was lit by the evening sun and the wind was caressing his grey hair. He was smoking. She has been looking for simplicity, for inner peace, for equilibrium, and here it was - sitting in the same train going towards the sun... She turned away and returned to her seat.

He took a look at her like the sun rays hit earth in the morning. And she back to him just like the ocean waves embrace sunset. The first said words from his mouth stuck on her heart like the breeze of the spring when it comes. While the train was bound to nowhere, in the little cabin, the heating feelings scatter in the air. Something deep down on them make them see that their bodies need to be free to the eternity.

But did it really happen? The cold of the mountain froze her feelings once again. She gazed into nowhere… And then into her memories…Her almond eyes, coloured in blue were almost telling her story… the dust of books red at an early age, books that had made her and her friends dream of love, dream to love and be loved. And then the heartbreak…She had given the heart away to the one she could not love, to the one who could not love her. She had known. They had both known.

Oh, how she wished that the train would stop there forever, how she wished to go near that stranger ask for a cigarette and start talking. Fall in love with him. Him to fall in love with her. But, it moved. They passed the mountains and there in front of them was the station, the sea. She remained there frozen, as he went way. The almonds eyes were full of rain.

(Word interpretation by Juan Carlos, Ieva Barsauskaite, Saimon Prendi and Doklea Shehu)

Backwards

Humphrey knew he wouldn’t have been born if he stayed in this room for too long. He tried to get out of it, but when he took his first step he collapsed on the floor. He was a baby now.. But let’s back up for a bit, shall we?

Humphrey was a middle-aged man with nothing to look forward to.

He would drink beer with other Humphreys after working all day in the post office. He would visit his mother on mother’s day and he would bring her flowers. He would feed his cat and look through the window. Humphrey’s sleep was dreamless. As was his life. When I met Humphrey I felt so sorry for him. He was passionless, colourless … Whereas I… I was full of life. I loved and cherished each day. I would wake up and be ready to run, to embrace the world. I could feel the sun touching me gently and following me. I could hear the whispers of the nature. I could communicate with the birds, leaves and I would enjoy their dance with each other and the wind. I was part of a lovely colourful world. Each passing day I was able to run faster just to feel more of that breeze that would in turn fed me with energy for the coming day. But each day, at 5:00 pm I would slow down before that small ugly bar to meet Humphrey. I don’t even know why. Because Humphrey had started to annoy me. Somewhere in that frozen and boring look there was something that scared me. I couldn’t really tell what. But I felt he was teasing me. A man without future or dreams was teasing me. And what is more important I cared. I slowly started to hate Humphrey. He was an obstacle to my run. He was starting to scare me. Become my biggest fear. That kind of fear you deny yourself at before sleep at night. That kind you want to leave there to rot, or even better, that one you want to destroy so that it never reappears. But against my wishes, each day at 5:00 pm I would go and meet Humphrey. I don’t know what drove me towards him. I guess i was too curious. I wanted to know why he thought he would tease me. He was the end of life, and I was the beginning of it. I was the future. He was the past...

But I continued to visit him every day at 05:00 pm for 5 years, repeating the same words, glancing at each other with irony. On the 24th of March 2017, my 30th birthday, I had decided to meet Humphrey for the last time. So there I was at 05:00 pm in the same ugly bar, which was the only thing that hadn’t changed during those years. Humphrey was there, with all his other Humphrey friends. Humphrey did not have that teasing look. He had decided to finally dissolve that mystery, the one that had driven me towards him all these years… And I panicked! I wanted to run away but somehow I was paralysed. No wonder he had looked at me ironically and rejected my pity: Humphrey was the future. He was the reflection of my future! And suddenly I felt I had never left that small suffocating room. But I was able to pull myself together and get out of that stupid bar. Surprisingly I could still run. So I run… I just run…

(Word interpretation by Justas Samuolis, Ieva Barsauskaite, Drivalda Delia, Viola Ola, Dena Cenko)

Mirror

A still day like any other. For the first time, I see the clouds flying on the water’s surface. Up here I soar amongst my brothers, dance with the winds and joust with the mountains. All of a sudden, from the edge of the lake, there where the dock is, a man appears and jumps into the still mirror like surface. The water splashes as he disappears under the surface. The water envelopes him and for an instant he feels like there is no difference between him and the water.

He breaks the surface and inhales deeply. Sweet oxygen. Sweet relief. Eyes opening like a Newborns. His exhale sends ripples through the lake, never to encounter him again. He stares at those clouds in the sky, floats on his back and wonders...

In the realm of Gray and Lacan, a reflection is simple. You are you. I am me. She is him.

(Word interpretation by Luke McBeath Smith-Offcial, Kumbirai Ndoro, Andrea Popyordanova, Louisa Bihi, Michael Havelin and Martin Skarback)

Black Hole

'Plush velvety cushioned night, sparkling bright with the light of a million - a billion - a trillion stars and more. Encircle the universe with your arms of beautiful nuclear fire and burn till the end of time when, at peace, at last, we fade to the black hole from whence we came..', with her last breath, her final words, she willingly surrendered to the journey towards yet another unknown. Never before had she felt a calm so deep, so perfect... She had dreamt of this moment ever since, in her innocence, she got mixed up in life’s adventure. Those days now so long ago and so irreplaceable.

The first shockwave swept over her. “Deep breaths”, she thought to herself. For a lady who had always avoided even a sniff of anger she had suddenly become engulfed in red, puffing away like a charging bull. A blubbering idiot, as she described, had lost control of his drink walking up the gangway of the train and it had decided to perch itself upon her white cotton kaftan dress.

She was in bed, his smell all around her. It tied her to this bed, this room, to him. Time had disappeared with her opening the door of the room. As she entered, she plunged into nothingness. No, not nothingness, there was the smell. It was futile to resist. And so she stayed and never left.

(Word interpretation by Pab Roberts, Mažvydas Samuolis, Kumbirai Ndoro and Ieva Barsauskaite)

Nipple

Why has no-one approached your nipple?
Why has no-one drawn your lips?
Your make-up looks rather faded,
Yet I feel you’re kind of hip.
Your hair has grown, it looks matted,
I see it falling around your chest,
Caressing your nipples.
Your smile sees and your eyes rest.
You look like you’ve seen your best.
You wilt and waver, passive yet profound.
Perhaps you’ve failed your own test.

(Word interpretation by Pab Roberts, Mazvydas Samuolis, Alan Raul and Ralph Wilson)

Nobody

No one knows him. He came from far away. A hollow face and a body still young, a gait tired but still full of energy... He has no desire to stop walking... No one knows where he has to go and what he has to find out. His clothes suggest his origin of mountain grasslands. Maybe he is a hunter or maybe an adventurer...or just one lonely man in search of himself and his identity...

However, it has not always been like this. Only in this place, only at this time people wondered who he was – there was a different place in the world, where everyone knew him. Nobody could guess what made him look like this. Was it the money that he earned tricking other people in such a clever way? Was it the mind-blowing power that he only had so recently? Or was it the night, after which he decided to leave everything he had, everyone he knew and just walk until he reaches the place where he belongs? One would say it was the girl. The one, who turned his life around the first time she showed up. And then, she might have done the same again when she left. After all, he used to say himself that it is nothing else, but the love that makes you somebody.

(Word interpretation by Juan Carlos and Adelina Kiskyte)

Ultraviolet

Between Blue and X lies a small part of the spectrum that only vampires, robots and bees can detect, Ultraviolet. This burning invisible band of light infuses the air around us with a crackling density that tickles our faces, darkens our flesh and bleaches our bones when we are gone. It is this dangerous contrast that makes Ultraviolet of interest to our tale...

Of all the creatures in the Vale of Colours, Morelle was a very unique one. Illusions of tropical paradises, mystical lands or even heaven itself could be created and experienced by all those who could conceive of her. But unlike any other creature in the Vale of Colours, she was imperceptible within the visible light spectrum. It was only within the burning Ultraviolet radiation that Morelle could reveal her true self into all shades of red corals and blue algae.

Stuck in her eternal spring she lived day by day hoping that another creature would be curious enough to discover her secret world and brave enough to break through the lethal cocoon of UV light and reach her soul. But little did she know that in one of these endless days in a very distant vale a bee called Ivy was about to start an adventurous trip…

(Word interpretation by Pab Roberts, Fiorina Jaso and Alvita Delia)

Wide

It was in a summer month. That He found himself placed in front of the yumito, with a face of confusion and disbelief. Confusion due the name of the wooden ship, which hailed from far Western Europe yet he was looking at ship built in Central Europe. And disbelief because he found himself placed in front of ship called yumito and a seagull had the nerve to soil onto his shoes. He was a boy who believed in luck but bird poop luck was where he drew the line.

He bent down to wipe the shoes. While he was doing it, a wide shadow covered the boy. He slowly raised his head and saw a man standing so close to him that the kid could smell the mud on the man’s boots. The man was looking down at the little boy, whose hands were covered in white seagulls stool. The kid was staring at the man so amused that his mouth was wide open. The little boy could not take his eyes of the face that the man had. The square jaw reminded him of a toolbox, where his father keeps his precious wrench; wide lips were sealed like a broad line, almost touching with the huge nose that looked like a big potato just casually sitting on a toolbox. The boy has never seen such a big forehead either. Everything was wide and big on this man’s face, and the boy only turned his look away when he remembered his mother saying not to stare at people.

(Word interpretation by Kumbirai Ndoro and Adelina Kiskyte)