Chapter 1
In the spring of that year, our country had just waken up from a long slumber, but our town, just like many other areas, was still deep in sleep. It was a long sleep, without any dreams, tranquil and peaceful as the cool air lurking in the depth of a well. Everything was just so green in this place, the sky and land merges into a vivid gradient, the color was so bright and saturated that a person unfamiliar with this scenery would feel his eyes ached. We were there, in that heart-throbbing greenish, calmly lived through everyday, our pure hearts were without unnecessary thoughts or wishes. During those days, if somebody had claimed such a thing, that our village was submerged in a deep sleep, I would accept it as an undeniable truth without an ounce of anger.
It was the truth, yes, it was the truth. It was really like we were living in a long dream, an unreasonable illusion. Time did not seem to flow as usual. Every morning, when we woke up, what greets us was the vast gradient of green and blue of the scenery. It was always there, it was eternal - oh so we thought. Nothing changed, and everyday was just like a repeat of the day before that. Sometimes the wind blows, sometimes rains pours down, and the season changed, but those variation seemed as vapid as the different shapes of clouds in the summer sky. Nothing changed, and everything become eternity. The shadow of the old manors on the hill, the song of the fishermen, the smell of the grassland, everything was as the same as it was yesterday, everything was everlasting as the blueish green of those faraway mountain. I had thought like that, and it was probably the same to him.
It was a long childhood for both of us. On those green hills, we played together, and listened to the sound of other children pretending to be pirates in the forest, knowing nothing about fear or darkness. Those brilliant days continued as the stream always flow down from the mountain. Everything that we need was there, and we did not learn how to wish for more that what we need, therefore, we were happy.
We should have felt the footstep of a new era and all those chaotic changes in the countries, in the capital behind those green curtains. The sound of changes had been resounding all over the country - from those Western ships that gathered more and more in our water to the net of railways and electrical poles cutting through the scenery which had been unchanged for centuries. Those sound, however, had been muted down by the thick green walls surrounding us. Behind the forest, our village, our hometown was still deep in sleep, and we were not even aware of the fact that we were living in a dream.
A dream such as that would not be allowed to exist forever. It was so clear, and yet those days we could not see it. Changes had come under the guise of strange visitors that we did not wish for, those who would invade our peaceful life without warning. Their stubborn presence and all those abnormal, scary and grotesque events that followed had tore down those thick curtains protecting us. They has woke us up from our long sleep, in a way that as subtle as throwing a bucket of cold water on the face of a sleeping person. Even after all of that, when everything had passed, I was still wondering whether it is all their fault, those newcomers? Or is it true that we were deserve of it.
In the spring of that year, when my young master - my little friend - turned sixteen and become a student of a secondary school in the city behind those green curtain, a sudden news had come to us. Just like a storm from faraway lands, it shakes the whole village, suddenly and without any mercy. The old manor on the hill, one of the few prides of the village, and one of the most vivid memories of our past, has been purchased by somebody.
The new owner of that old manor, according to those strange rumors, was a family of foreigners - a family of “barbarians” from the West.
