2. A different morning
A new day dawned. That morning, Marina decided that it was about time she stepped out of her house in which she lived alone, trying to forget and avoid the world. She had to satisfy an urgent mental need of hers that could no longer wait. For a long time now, she wanted to visit the small chapel of St Anna but for some inexplicable reason that visit was always put off, as there was something that kept her from doing so every day.
Her circadian clock went off loudly that morning and woke her up at the most appropriate moment of the day. She got up slowly from her iron-wrought bed in her bedroom and went to the desktop of an old dressing table. On that elaborately-carved piece of furniture, there was a crystal pitcher with water and a built-in water basin. With slow, almost ceremonial, movements she takes the pitcher in her hand and pours some water in the bone-china receptacle. She dips her hands in the water and washes her face softly. She dries herself up with a pure white cotton towel that was carefully folded on the desktop and takes off her gossamer white nightgown. She goes in front of the mirror and she stands there still.
Something appears to be bothering her rather intensely. Deep in thoughts, she combs her long black hair as she is seeing her reflection in the mirror and starts observing herself more closely. She first focuses on her face. Her sorrowful blue eyes attest to the fact that she is missing something. Suddenly, her eyes look elsewhere and now focus on her body. She observes her breasts that have grown larger and then the curves of her thighs that have rounded evenly. Based on all that, she understands that her image has changed externally. Yet, internally, she keeps feeling a great vacuum.
Right at that moment, she comes to realize for the first time that from an adolescent, she has grown into a very charming woman. Then, she paces confidently towards the brown walnut wardrobe on the left of her room. She must prepare herself slowly and put on the fitting clothes for her assignment today.
She flings the doors of the wardrobe open and from its interior sh
