Fragile Fairytale

A Map of the Fractures

There was silence in the room.
The question wasn't spoken aloud, yet it floated in the air — silently, behind every speck of settling dust:
Would that little girl, the one Janka once was, be proud of her now?

The thought hummed in her head as she sat at the table, slowly turning a worn-out pen between her fingers.
Maybe she was praying — or trying to sort through memories.
It had become normal for the ground to shift beneath her feet from time to time.
Even when half-burnt roses stared back at her from the rim of a vase — it didn't bother her anymore.

The old teddy bear she once worshipped as a god still gathered dust in the wardrobe.
It meant nothing now.
Just like she shed that polka-dot skirt from her body, she had shed every rag doll once carefully lined up on the shelves.
She'd grown up.
Traded candy cigarettes for real smoke.
And in her glass?
Vodka.

Everything had become real.
The roles she once only rehearsed slowly became life itself.
The play came alive — with its main prop being an enormous hourglass that spilled time relentlessly.

Janka had reached that age where she no longer cared what was on TV at eight o'clock.
Nor if she accidentally put on mismatched socks.
She was always rushing. Always late.
Missing the important moments — without even realizing it.
Would she have cared anyway?
Probably not.

Even now, she was just sitting there, wondering how she could rewind the film reel slipping from her grasp.
Wishing the sand would fall slower.
But she always realized: what's the point?
You can't reach into the past with bare hands.
That would be a kind of theft.

But from whom?
From herself?
Was she insane?

To alter memories would be a stolen gift — bittersweet joy.
Now, it only brought pain.
But still...
She couldn't uproot herself again, couldn't drown in what she had already buried.
Time could not be paused.
No more flowers that dissolved in fire or skin ready to be submerged in water.
Everything was gone.
Dried up, turned to ash. Or frozen solid.

Fragments of the past still echoed on her face.
In the honesty of her smile.
In those objects she now regarded as if they were someone else's memories.
As if other hands had folded those drawings, other hearts beat during those summers.

An old perfume bottle.
A worn hand-woven blanket.
A scrap of paper in Grandma Éda's handwriting:
"These things still remember who Tavaszi Janka really is."

From the bottom of another box emerged a different kind of jar — hardened rose cream, so old she couldn't tell whether it was still edible or just a sacred relic.
Janka recoiled.
The thick substance clinging to her finger smelled the same.
As if time had been preserved in the form of essential oil.
But she knew: nothing is permanent.
Even the things the eye captures are fleeting.

Houses and people.
Personal items in strangers' gardens.
Dogs and cats.
Sometimes moments simply freeze to stone.
When Janka walked the streets, she often searched for herself.
She chased familiar scents.

She fell in love with a peach-colored house wall, with a knee-high pine fence, with a willow tree leaning gently over her head.
Under a concrete bridge, the stream gurgled.
Beyond it, an old house stood — with a garden where, in June, you could count the scent of strawberries in the air.

Once there was a dog, too — the one that lunged at the rickety fence every time she passed.
And the black cats that limped out from the crumbling house's doorway.

A home with bricked-up windows and no door.
A world wrapped in secrets and murmurs.
Barbed wire keeping it separate from reality.
Crossing was impossible.
Still, she tried.