With bright colours on her face and a voice even crows would find disturbing, the ne𒅌ws presenter burst onto the screen, interrupting a scien👍ce programme, to read out some breaking news in a slow and frigid tone:
“According to our correspondent, sixty-seven men have been killed in the clashes taking place in the north of the city.”
As she disappeared from the screen at the end of the newsflash, the presenter glared at the woman in the blue dress sitting on her sofa in front of the TV; her face, however, was turned to the right and s🌄he was deep in thought, a soft, sweet smile on her face. The woman in blue was not interested in the news—she had not bothered to turn even a little and the appearance of the presenter did not seem to concern her at all.
The newsre♐ader was filled with indignation. After a few minutes she was back, and she watched the woman sitting in front of her f♏or a few moments. She read out her new update more loudly in order to draw the woman’s attention:
“Our correspondent has now informed us that the number of men killed in the bloody clashes that have ravaged the north of the city has reached eighty-four.”
By the time she disappeared again she was almost bursting with rage. The woman was still quietly smiling, gazing tenderly at the beautiful thing on her right and, the presenter guessed, not paying attention to her news, h🌳er voice or even her figure.
Backstage in the news studio, the presenter muttered furiously to herself, “Damn it, why won’t that idiot look at me? Does she think she’s more beautiful than I am? Why is she smiling so stupidly?🌸 What rosy dream is floating in her head while the battles rage? Damn her and her blue dress!” Her curses were interrupted by the producer handing her a piece of paper. She hastily looked in her small mirror, adding a little more make-up to her already excessively painted face. She rushed to the chair behind the desk in front of the camera.
For the third time, tꩲhe news presenter burst onto the screen and, trying to catch the woman’s attention, read out her news in an offensively loud shout:
“Our correspondent from the north of the city has just informed us that the number of causalities in the fierce clashes that have been raging there for hours has reached a hundred men!”
She was panting by the time she finished bawling ou🌸t this report. Her voice r🌃ang monotonously through the room of the woman, who was not paying her the slightest bit of attention.
At that point the presenter lost it completely. She leapt madly out of the screen and rushed at the woman in blue, shooting daggers at her with an unwavering fury all over her visage, her every intention to give her a🃏 hard slap, with no mercy or compassion.
The presenter approached the woman and rai﷽se🐼d her hand, but before she could slap her, she spotted a small hole in the woman's head and, underneath it, a thin thread of coagulated blood. She gasped in astonishment; her hand slackened then, ashamed, she let it fall. She realised that the woman must have had her head tilted to the side for hours, facing the wall upon which there hung a black and white photograph of a young bride and groom in their wedding clothes.
She sighed then something within her soul broke into a thousand pieces. The presenter turned and saw that a window near the sofa had been shattered by a stray bullet. A lonely tear sneaked out of her eye, polluting her whole heart with its bitterness. She leant towards this woman who had lived here alone and kissed her on her cold forehead. She heard intermittent gunshots nearby. She pulled herself together, gathering her shattered soul. She then trudged back to the 🐠TV screen, dragging her weary legs. She entered it weakly, like an old woman, to sit back behind the desk.
Resistin🦂g the weeping that encircled her soul, the presenter murmured her breaking news in a voice which was constricted b꧟ut warm:
“As we have learnt from eyewitnesses, the final number of casualties in the north of the city is a hundred men and one blue woman.”
The woman in blue turned to the television to smile at the presenter inღ silent grief. A solitary tear trickled miserably down one cold cheek of her dead body.
Translated by Maisaa Tanjour and Alice Holttum
