Right one at the wrong time

After the first rehearsal

After a successful first rehearsal, everyone was satisfied, so far. Only the sun was still causing problems. But Konstrakta had had fun. She was curious for all the other entries even though she had not heard all the songs that would compete this year yet. And apart from those with whom she shared the hotel, she had only met a few of the participants. Since arriving in Turin, she had had little time to see anything of the city and outside the ESC universe. When she came back from the long dark corridor behind the stage into one of the large bright rooms, she saw Maro from Portugal in a corner. She recognised her immediately as "Saudade, saudade" is one of her all-time favourites this year. For a second, she considered going to her and introducing herself, but then she continued to let her gaze wander, and her eyes caught on a small person at the other end of the large room. She stopped for a moment and wondered if she knew this woman. She had short blonde hair, black trousers, a top with glittery stripes hanging down which caused slightly colourful reflections from the sun hitting her through one of the high windows. And she was barefoot.
When Konstrakta's eyes fell on her feet, she was a little irritated and wrinkled her nose. What a strange girl. The blonde was standing next to a young brown-haired woman and was giving an interview to the press. While she was talking, she didn't stand still for a second but moved slightly or waved her arms around the whole time. Even though she was standing so far away, there was a strong energy coming from her that one couldn't quite explain. It just radiated off of her.
Konstrakta tapped the woman from her choir who was still standing next to her and asked, "Who is that again?"
"Oh, mhh. Hang on. I think I heard her song but I'm not sure right now. I think she's from Sweden." Sweden, then. That was one of the countries she hadn't listened to yet. A few seconds passed and Konstrakta was still standing there watching them. Suddenly someone touched her on the arm. "Ana, we're going to the changing room. Are you coming?" She tore her gaze from the Swede and replied, "Yes, yes. Of course. I'm coming."
-
After she had changed her clothes and the evening was free, she wanted to go for a walk alone. She valued the peace and quiet very much and that was exactly what she needed in these weeks to recharge her batteries. She had also resolved not to use her mobile phone so much, but she couldn't completely do without it. After all, she wanted to stay in touch with her family. Her two teenage children were now at an age where they didn't necessarily want to talk to their mother on the phone every day, but she wanted to exchange at least a few words with them. She talked to her husband on the phone every evening. When she returned from her walk to her room and hung up the phone after telling her kids about the first rehearsal, her eyes fell on a vase with small stones in the corner of her hotel room. The setting evening sun was just shining on it, forming colourful patterns on the floor. And as if that had been a cue, she remembered the little blonde woman from this afternoon. She grabbed her phone, unlocked her screen, took her headphones from the nightstand, plugged them in and typed "Sweden ESC 2022" into her Youtube browser.
For the first time she saw the woman's face up close. And her name. Cornelia Jakobs. She too had piercing blue eyes and yet they were completely different from her own. Almost the opposite but how was that even possible? They were only blue eyes. Konstrakta scrolled a little and then clicked on the video of her performance at the Melodifestivalen. There, too, she was barefoot. Both during the scoring and later on stage. When she won, she jumped up and down wildly and fell into everyone's arms like a little child who just got a puppy for Christmas. Konstrakta fast-forwarded the video to her performance to hear the song. After 20 seconds she closed the browser. "Mhh no. I don't like it." She thought to herself. But she didn't really know why. It was a beautiful song.