01.03

Kristen would often tell Gaia the story about the girl who lived. She would lower her voice, even if they were alone and nobody could hear them.

Once there was a girl who had to stay still all day, for any small effort could cost her life. The girl knew she could not play with the other children and listened at them from an open window. One day she left her room and met them. She run once and nothing happened, run again, got scared, laughed, got angry and laughed again, for days, until one afternoon she suddenly lost consciousness. The man who was called made an incision on the back of her head from which a trickle of blood came out. In the following days the child felt better and at the end of the week she began to walk again. On the following week she was back on the field, she would never stop playing, even for a minute, even when her breath failed, her legs ached, her head told her to stop, she would always see something interesting that forced her to get up to look better. She was alive and fearless, Kristen said. Gaia’s eyes widened.