Spring-Oranges

"Determined waves make their way to the beach softly hissing as they rise up, trying to escape their fate but finally admitting defeat with a sigh as they crush against the sand; a pinch of salt in the air. Warm winds make your hair brush against your cheaks, carrying a wiff of fresh spring oranges to your senses. Listen! Can you hear the birds sing?". My father whistleing a birds song in my ear, "One day I´ll show you, I promise!"

As far as I can think back, stories were what I loved most. I couldn´t wait until I would finally be able to read. So, I sat quietly in a corner as my mom tought my older brother all the letters, I soon couldn´t seem to live without. By barely 4 I could read and wasn´t likely to be seen bookless anywhere I went. "Don´t you dare take that book with you into the shower", my mom used to shout through the bathroom door. At some point I was even riding my bike while reading "Robinson Crusoe". I still have the scares to proof it... so does Defoe´s masterpiece and maybe the corner of my grandma´s house.

But my fathers stories were the spark to a fire that made my heart burn for all hundrets of fictious lives I have since got to vicariously live and feel through. He had a way of capturing moments and releasing them, as hardly anyone else seemed to be able to; of making you feel as if you were, right there standing on that beach in his home town in morocco smelling a hint of fresh spring oranges in the air, when you really were curled up next to him in your bed under that butterfly duvet cover, you loved so much.

Sometimes when he was deployed in different places of the world he would make a stop in Morocco on his way back and got us some Mangos, Kiwis and Oranges from back home. He used to pick up the Oranges and hold them up to his ear, whispering as if the Orange was talking to him. "This one has babies inside", he used to then say confidently. "How do you know?". "Well, she told me.", pointing at the Orange. I believed him. He never was wrong. It took me a long time to figure that one out but I already knew back then I wanted to have the gift of creating worlds just like he did.

My parents were both religous. I was half Muslim and half Catholic. As my father got sick the kind of stories he told changed; they became more mythical, but never less fascinating or touching. He told me that where my shoulder plates are is where once my angle wings were, that should I have a look around I´d never find an other human that did not have shoulder plates, because no matter where we came from and what our religion or situation was; we all had angles and never had to fear anything.

When his illness got very bad and the doctors warned us that it might be the last time we would be able to come and see him, my mom took us to the hospital. I still remember the smell of disinfectant at the entrance of the ICU, the blue protective gear we had to put on and behind which door his room was. His eyes where closed and he was lying in his bed. Now it was my turn to tell him a story so I leaned down to his ear as he used to and whispered, "Can you hear the birds sing?..."

I am now studying and making films, telling my stories to the world and everyone that wants to hear them. I´d like to think my dad would be proud of me. After all he was the one who gifted this part of the world to me.

_

By the way this song reminds me a lot of him maybe you´d like to have a listen:

Here would be an English translation: