The Lines of Our Hands

The Lines of Our Hands

Yesterday was our first day in Geel.

The teachers had divided us into small groups and left us alone in the hall; in that way – they had said- it would be easier to meet and know one another.

We were sitting all around staring at our mates curiously. There was someone sighing, just to break the silence, and someone – a little embarrassed – observing his nails and tearing little pieces of skin.

Then somebody spoke capturing our attention: “My favourite singer is Samira Said”, she said. “My father hates music, so I’m compelled to listen to her secretly. My mother on the contrary loves it, even if she prefers older melodies, something like Hossam Ramzy ones.. she gets crazy after him”.

“Once my mother cooked for me ‘Brik bil lahm’, she likes cooking food from different countries”,

another girl entered in conversation. Black hairs, large eyes, thin lips.

The first girl smiled: “I know it!”, she exclaimed happy, “I was born in Bordeaux, but my parents are Algerians”.

“But I prefer Mc Donald’s hamburgers”.

Someone nodded agreeing.

“I don’t believe in God”.

I turned myself to look at the boy that had just spoken.

“My parents tried to compell me to take various sacraments, but me.. well, I don’t believe; yes, I’m an atheist”.

“On the contrary I’m Orthodox; when I was a child, with my grandmother we were used to paint together eggs. I loved so much painting, and I do it even now“.

I sighed. “Me too”, I had the courage to say; he watched me interested: “And what do you like to paint?”.

“What I feel… simply I let myself go..”.

“It’s a good thing. I let me go through the books”.

I didn’t notice her before. She was sitting near the atheist boy, crossed legs, her red hairs loosed on her shoulders. 

“I’ve been reading since I was a child; do you know Emily Dickinson?”.

We nodded. Someone remained silent.

“Well, she’s my favorite poetess. Her poems reflect me”.

“And I read Rumi: my father wants me to become an educated woman”, said again the young girl that loved Samira Said.

“I don’t read anything. I prefer to play videogames and watch movies”.
“Boys! Always the same!”, exclaimed some girls. He didn’t care: “I love Horror and the old american movies, those ones in black and white”.

“I have been playing piano for seven years. I dream to become a musician in the future”.

“I want to travel through the world!”.

I glanced down, watching my hands. We were so different, boys and girls from different countries and cultures, with different dreams, interests, passions, ambitions.
We were sixteen, fifteen, seventeen years old. Each one had an identity, an aim. Anyway there was something that joined us.

Someone noticed that I was absent-minded: “What’s the matter with you?”.

I sitted in a better position. “Are you talking to me?”.
“Yes, sure“.

“There is nothing” I mumbled. “I was thinking about our hands..”.

“…Our hands?”, they watched to one another confused. I swallowed, I had to be ready to make clear my words.

“Did you ever notice? Watch them “.

The Orthodox boy watched his hand, and so did the young black haired Spanish girl, the same did the boy who loved black and white movies.

“That one is the happiness line “, I explained. “And that one under, just crossing, is the heart line. In the direction of the thumb, then, there is the line of the life”.

“Here it is! It is true!”, exclaimed the Algerian girl, who was born in Bordeaux. “They are the same”. She took the hand of the boy sitting near her. Olive complexion, black hair, he was from Mexico. “They are the same”. “Yes, they are!”.

We were sitting around, holding one another by hands. We pressed them as if we decided not to divide anymore. I felt like I was part of something great. Those our differences that before seemed me so impossible, now were a source of happiness and friendship. We watched one another intensely.

Blond, short, red hair. Almond-shaped eyes, pale complexion.

Emily Dickinson, The cherbat, ‘The Birth of a Nation’, Chanukah.

So different, but so similar.

Like the lines of our hands.

Sahara ROSSI

III E

IISS “C. Darwin” – Rome