17-11-2019. 3 numbers that changed my life, the life of us all. Looking out the window at 7:30 in the morning, watching Athens slowly fill with life. Hugging my friends, who even though I had seen just the other day, I had already missed them extremely. Trying to fit in the subway to return home after a friday night with friends at our favourite place. Telling my grandmother innocent lies: “I don’t have time to come today grandma, I have some studying to do” just to gain more moments in a restaurant unknown to me in Glyfada. They all now seem impossible. Ironically or even funny. Yesterday I was lying on the floor. Stacks of books and canvases with half-finished works around me. My headphones were my only friend, their music – my consolation. I closed my eyes and tried to forget the stress of school, the friends I have to see for months and all the experiences I would have managed to live, if it wasn’t for this pandemic. All the movie nights to a small cinema in the neighborhood with my grandmother, that I always took for granted. “Transportation 6” the only message I had the courage to send. For a moment I thought how selfish I was being. How “thousands of people died every day” as my mother always reminded me. I felt guilty about my grief, I felt like I was making a bid deal out of nothing, that I was not appreciainge what I had. I opened my geometry book and began to write with a blue pen: “Exercise 3”. Suddenly someone knocked the door. My mom came in and asked with a big smile on her face: “How are you love?” “Perfect mom! You;” I answered as I discreetly wiped my wet cheek with tears…
Text by N., 15 years old
Art sketch by Evripidis Tsolakis, 15 years old
Participations from Hackathon 2021