Journey 5 - Waiting

Destiny

After almost a century, here I am heading for new adventures.
Pulled by horses, helped by the stream, as I said, we reached the road. There the goatherds load us up and we set off into the unknown.
After more than three hours of walking, up the hill with the spurs and down the valley with the shoes - the poor horses were all foam - we reach the bank of the Bistrița, at the entrance to the quay.
I forgot to tell you that the postmaster accompanied us all the way. I don't know why, we just didn't want to go anywhere. But, by the looks of it, he had his orders. He was still babbling about dirtying the beauty of his boots.
Here, at the water's edge, further downstream from the Zugreni herd, we all stayed, because there were many of us, a few hundred, until autumn, to escape the dampness of the forest that fed us.
That's why we had plenty of time to sit and talk, dreaming about where we would end up and what would happen to us.
Some could already see themselves made into a draniya, covering people's houses or, with any luck, even a holy church. Or, why not, you could even see planks, cabinets and beams making up a house of a householder. There was even a seed of contention between our people and those who came on the water from beyond Cârlibaba, because they did not want to be made of wood but of shingles. In the end they were calmed down by an older man who explained to them that they were either draniță or shingle, still a devil, and to appease them he told them that they would all become shingle.
Others even saw themselves transformed into tables, chairs, wardrobes and beds with woollen mattresses and down pillows under which they placed their proud basil bushes to dream of their sweethearts.
There were a few who wanted to become a cherub with sour cucumbers, only good for a chindie, or donuts in which, in the evening, the housewife milked the cow surrounded by the little ones who were waiting for the warm and sweet milk. And they too hoped for coffees of cold spring water to quench their thirst in the heat of the summer afternoon, or little boxes of sweet and sour mash to sting the tongue in autumn weather. A small, more covetous few hoped to reach the putina to get their fill of the creamy sour cream and greasy, gabby butter.
Further away, below the mountainside, near the Colbu stream, there was a group who would have loved to have gathered books containing the wisdom of the world or notebooks for the little ones to unravel and write their little bouquets.
Another part, not so high in spirit. They simply wanted to become oyster beds to enclose the open spaces of the houses or to separate the courtyard from the outbuildings.
And, as there is no forest without dryness, I mean us trees not you humans, some of us will end up, like it or not, just sawdust.
From time to time, my friend the sashter came by, accompanied by a strong old man with a white beard and a dark brown hair growing out from under his helmet. I found out later that the old man was old Covaliu, the star of the raftsmen. He used to knock us, turn one of us over with his cap, and off they'd go.
One day, it was not yet noon, when the master came again, this time accompanied by some soldiers and two goatherds. They turned us around, turned us over, and picked out three of us taller and slimmer. They were to become masts in the courtyard of the military units, masts on which the flag of Romania would fly.
I wonder what fate will have in store for me? I would have liked to become a mast, but I'm too strong-willed for that. Anyway, God willing!

Water