Auburn Ivy runs away from her problems even if it means running away from her family, friends and familiar life. Anthony Kroff is a footballer on the rise but is lonely and lost in the new city he finds himself in. Their lives would have never inte...
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0.28 | from Sabah's recorder: when throwing eggs |
Real Madrid vs Barcelona.
It is always a tough match. The energy is undoubtedly high and so is the pressure. It's covered extensively with newspapers and news channels building up the heat, comparisons are drawn, stats are mercilessly discussed, calling upon every story they can, embellishing it, spicing it, spreading it like a wildfire until no one, not even my tourist customers can escape it.
It is huge.
And this time, it wasn't just popularized as a Cristiano vs Messi brawl, because this time the media had found something much more...how shall I say it? Biblical?
Brother versus brother. The age old story excited the media and the fans ate it up. It played on me too. Every time I saw a poster, I would feel my nerves tingle with the excitement, the nervous energy that was singing the air. Every picture of the Kroff brothers had been exorcised, blown up and I am nearly ashamed to admit Auburn and I were taken up with the story.
Onscreen, we saw pictures of Anthony with his brother and offscreen we saw the haggard Anthony retreating into a nervous, distracted silence. Most of the pictures were from their childhood. They looked happy together, playing football in their courtyard. There was even a video of six year old Anthony, jumping in the crowds with his parents cheering for Mikhail as he scored on his under-eleven team.
It is safe to say Auburn and I had developed an intense dislike of Anthony's family. To the outside world, the definitions of Mikhail and his 'little brother' might have appeared cute, interesting, titillating but to us who knew what this demeaning title meant to Anthony...we felt angry at them and protective of him.
There were no videos of Anthony being cheered when he started his career. Just a couple of grainy videos of him celebrating with the other kids on the team. Sometimes I would look up pictures of Mikhail on Auburn's phone and search the handsome face which looked so much like Anthony's but yet so unlike because you see, Mikhail Kroff exuded confidence. His eyes were sharp but friendly, his smile was relaxed and he had Anthony's eyes, just a few shades lighter. He looked mature, in control and so horribly relaxed that sometimes I feared about the result of the match.
It was going to be Mikhail's golden debut. Trust them to organize it like that.
One day, while we were sitting in the empty café, those pestering kids ran up to my crystal clear window glasses and slapped on some El Clasico posters. I quickly handed Auburn and Anthony four eggs each and we ran out shouting after those spawns of satan. One day one of the eggs will find their target I'm telling you or my soul will come back to haunt them.
We walked back, faces red from our short excited run and it seemed like we were back to our carefree selves, back when the toughest thing to do was to coordinate their meetings at the café. Except we were never really carefree even then, we just had the distracting shine of newness to us. Now, now, we were as familiar to each other as my knee pains were to me. Novelty is exciting, familiarity is beautiful; to those who have little of either.
