When Dreams are Calling by Carol Vorvain Read Free Book Online

filled my heart with joy.
    After hard negotiations with an old Greek lady
speaking neither
Romanian nor English, I ended up renting a tiny bachelor apartment,
disgusting,
unfurnished, at the basement. However, it was all mine and for now it
was much
better than a garage.
    And this was how my Canadian adventure started.
    We are never alone. Even when we want to be
left alone or when we
cry in despair thinking that we are all alone, even then, we are not
alone.
Just blind. I made no exception. After my first night in my new
“glamorous”
apartment, during the wee hours of the morning, I met my new comrades.
They
were a healthy bunch of happy cockroaches running around, eager to
multiply and
always there to keep me company.
    Such an offer! Who could refuse it? I could!
And I did!
    From a peaceful woman, I transformed into a
vengeful serial killer,
declared war, and focused all my energy and knowledge on winning.
Probably they
would never know what they had done wrong. But, I knew: they sneaked
in, in
large numbers, totally uninvited. And, after a few weeks of playing
dirty
tricks on them with different kind of poisons, I became the sole happy
tenant,
proving once more that the power stands in the brain, not in the
numbers.
    Sleeping straight on the floor, although it
might have been good for
my back, was never one of my favorite things. With no money to afford a
bed, I
ended up buying an inflatable small mattress.
    From the comfort of a very nice house it was
quite a change, and
although it was way better than being homeless, it was not too far
ahead.
    So, I figured some fresh paint on the walls
would make me feel a
little bit more cheerful. As during the day I was too preoccupied on
running
around looking for jobs, I painted my burrow at nighttime. Afraid
someone might
break in, like I was on a secret suicide mission, I kept all the
windows
closed. As expected, the strong smell of the paint made me faint and
for the
next few days I was high, for a completely different set of reasons
than one would wish
to be.
    I don’t remember ever having as many
discussions with myself as back
then. It was almost like two people were residing inside my head: one
was
always upset, scared, frustrated and wanted to go back to Romania; the
other was always trying to be the cheerleader, fiercely determined not
to give
up. It was hard to say which one of them was more convincing. They
seemed to
take turns and each day when I woke up I could never tell who will be
the
winner of the day:
    “So, tell me, was it smart to leave my legal
profession, my nice
house, my friends and my own country?”
    Obviously not. But hold on, things will
improve. All in good time.
    “Sure they will. It’s not that hard to get
better than this. How
much better, this is a totally different question. It is bad. That’s
the truth.”
    Just make sure that what you call truth is not
a produce of your
mind, but of reality as is. A happy life is not necessarily a secure
one, but
an authentic one. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Now, don’t be
picky and
impatient.
    “Picky? You call this picky?”
    If not picky, then surely prickly.
    “I know the drill. You want me to be grateful
for everything I have,
every day I live. No questions asked. I am sorry to disappoint you, but
I am
not.”
    I want you to keep trying; to believe in
yourself, in your destiny,
to believe that everything will be fine. Because what you believe in,
this is
what will happen.
    “What does not kill you makes you stronger.”
    And if it kills you, you are no longer .
    “That’s always a possibility.”
  
    As much as all this bickering back and forth
was OK in Romanian,
outside my head everyone spoke English or something that resembled to
it. More
and more, it became quite obvious to me that if I want to find a decent
job, I’d
better do the same.
    Together with my Canadian savior
and two huge dictionaries, I
started to learn proper English. It was a long, frustrating process,
which