The first shutter opens sleepily. Then the second. With difficulty, that one too. As it touches the wall, it groans from rheumatism; the building is old, and the dampness has eaten away bricks, cement, and wood. And people. Small patches of paint, once painted bright green, fall onto the ancient mosaic and blend with the dirt from the bars. For years, they have been competing to see which one will stain it more in an unequal fight, since rust is more effective. So, the winner and the marks are indelible, like some wounds. The entire building is in roughly the same condition as the mosaic; decay is very democratic and makes no distinctions. And so, with mold and rot, everyone and everything in the old apartment building carry on. The "ruin," as the neighbors call it. The ruin, as we will call it from now on. The day hangs indecisively on the edge of April, whether to be demolished on May Day or not; this year, they spoiled it, the Universe obeyed the "Greats," and they finally managed not to celebrate. Neither as a workers' May Day nor as a wild feast with skewers and tsipouro. The situation is like that...
When the first swallows arrived, they struggled to find quiet corners to build their nests or renovate the old ones. The people were all at home, either having stopped their work or, at best, working from there. So they had all the time to zealously chase away the swallows with brooms and mops, shoo! shoo! Go somewhere else, here we are! After all, which housewife wants her balcony to be pooped on? And because no one understood the arrival of spring, everything is different. The coats continue to hang melancholically on hangers behind the front doors, the carpets lazily roll on the floors, the seas remain sulky. Even the day refuses to grow longer! Besides, Easter itself passed completely silently, breaking the nerves of the priests over the slow season and of the children because the godmother didn't bring a Kalashnikov-themed candle. Tragedy.