You kiss her on the forehead when you leave, maybe at the exact moment she switches from one dream to another, eager to find a pink crystal, promised to the dwarf in the Amber Forest, who will make her an enchanted ring out of it. She knows that after she puts it on her finger, she will be able to speak the language of fireflies. The dwarf may not see that she is still biting her nails, let the deal fall through! You will never know, perhaps, told slyly and breathlessly, the dreams that comforted her sweet nights, with or without stars. Because they disappear too quickly. Sometimes, before breakfast, which you always skip. Most of the time, after the goodbye kiss, you sneak out of the room, so as not to disturb her fluffy sleep, and you run from one meeting to another, checking off the tasks in order of importance or randomly. The phone rings frantically, you have "n" calls waiting almost all the time. You often pull over, for messages & emails that can't stand being delayed. As if it's boiling over and no one has the patience for more than ten breaths, seen from above, the world looks like a broken carousel. No one sees you very well (except when you fall!), but they just need you, something from you. Something tangible, a generator of profit. A generator of something, anything. Material. Exhausted, at the end of a day with too many hours and too many trips, you return home. Accustomed to the rules of the times, she sends you to wash your hands and change, so that you are ready only for her. Without a phone, although it seems like you still have "just one more thing" to solve. She guards you at the bathroom door, jumping with happiness and impatience, to be sure that from there you will end up exactly in her room. Where you actually arrive, pushed by the strongest little hands that can exist. There, in the room that smells of candy and watercolors, where almost everything is pink and lilac and only a black dot of a ladybug straying on a corner of the curtain makes a discordant note, you actually find out what your purpose on Earth is: - Daddy, do you want to buy me a lochia aulie and be my pince-nez in the Amber Forest?! Forever!

Photo: Vera Chițu/Mirel Chițu