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Teuta Dhimarko is participating in the 5th International Literary Creation Competition, from Tiranë, Albania and she is 54 years old. We thank her for her participation and wish her success.

Keli

At the time when Keli started to frequent our company, as the girlfriend of Martin, she was a beautiful girl with long hair, with a fulsome body and a shiny health. The love story with the most attractive and extravagant guy of our group, positioned her in the top of feminine envy. They knew each other in a Beauty Contest, in which she was a protagonist and was even selected to the final five most beautiful girls. At that time, Martin was the set-designer of the contest and he would keep such a position for several years to come. At that time I was experiencing a more or less long and not very pleasant love story. Meanwhile, the romantic and easygoing particles of their story, passing through beach resorts, whispered here and there, created in me an unpleasant feeling about the condition I was in.

They were living together from two years already. Now their love had lost its first shining and also Keli. She was taciturn like always, but she had lost her easygoing feeling and the healthy appearance. Martin continued to be the set-designer of the Beauty Contest and here and there rumors were spreading about a new romance among him and the x-protagonist, participator in the recent contest.

In one of the evenings, we still used to organize with the old companionship, I happened to see Keli. We had rarely talked together but I have the misty impression, she was feeling good that we were sitting next to each other. I did not know her well and perhaps I had somehow prejudiced her as a pretty girl as she was. The conversation went around the usual things. It could not be called even a conversation. They were short phrases, parts of unfinished conversations that were said and forgotten instantly, under the sounds of the music played in the background. Anyhow, she was still beautiful, even without her easygoing. I could notice such a thing despite I was not concentrated because of the mess around. However I remember well the moment our friend Klevi said something about sadness. Something like: “If someone is saddened, his/her sadness is definitively related with love!”, or “His sadness is an exact hint that something is not functioning in his/her love.” It was more or less a similar expression and I remember well, how that expression became immediately true for me, meanwhile I was looking at Keli. At that instant, in the hall burst out sounds of a Latin song and the participants stood up to dance. Only she and I remained at the table. It was not indispensable we should speak. The noisy atmosphere that took place around us, accepted the silence. Still I pronounced:

-	Sometimes it seems so hard to me…

She turned her head toward me and peered with her big eyes in a curious manner. I felt obliged to finish that affirmation I pronounced thoughtlessly, so I added:

-	I wanted to say that, in this world full of people, you must chose the one, be happy with him, and then you must try to keep this thing going all your life! Sometimes it seems so hard to me.	

She kept staring at me as if trying to understand and formulate an answer.

-	Strange. - she said after a while. – It was not at all difficult to me. 

The sounds of music continued to declare loudly an unlimited love, reinforced even more by the girls shaking their belly while dancing in the platform. This whole appearance made more indecisive my belief in love. 

-	Since the first moment I me Marti – she continued after a short time – I understood that he was exactly my man. It was like I had known this all my life. It was as if I had known him earlier, even though we had never met. I think you have heard that in our DNA there is information  about everything related with us. About our possible diseases, about which organs of ours are most delicate, about our talents… It is said that we carry in, even the exact date of our death. As it is thought that in the Bible is the day of the end of the world, but they simply have not discovered yet in which part of the book It is.

I was listening to her and suddenly it seemed me, I was seeing another Keli. Differently from what I had known her, or to be more precise, from what I had imagined her to be until then. On the other hand, little by little, I started to comprehend that, the conversation began to need more attention by my part.

-	When we fell in love - she continued, - I was convinced that in my DNA, among all the other information, there was also his portrait. His hair turned into gray prematurely, his nose, the eyes, … That’s why I recognized him as soon as I saw him. In fact, when I think it well, in my DNA he had a big birthmark under the left whiskers. 

She placed her pointing finger under her whisker, than she laughed for the first time during that evening and drank of the glass filled up to the half with red wine.

-	I don’t know why I was always convinced that it would befit him a lot, and his portrait would be more complete if he would have a big birthmark under his left whisker - she said and laughed again, as to give nuances of humor to her strange sentences. 

I was trying to grind within myself this matter of DNA, and immediately like a lightening came in me the thought, that, there are for sure such fix ideas which make some females more interdependent than it is needed in love.

A lot of time flowed since then and fate did not intersect again our ways. During short and casual meetings with friends, I learned among other things that Keli and Marti were separated. It was said that Keli had lost a lot of weight. She had started to paint. She had even opened a personal exhibition, a thing that surprised me a lot. According to rumors, she had cut her hair very short an now she had put on a beret… These were the last news I had about her.

…

Years later, I happened to go with my husband and children in a Sunday, in a recently opened restaurant in suburb of the city, which the people liked very much at the moment. We rushed through the gate made up by a low nice fence, the path laid with carved stones and the flowers along it, which released a wonderful scent for it was spring. We hurried because our younger son, who I was carrying in my arms, was sick by the car voyage on our way to there. We sat in a table with an iron frame prepared beautifully, dyed in white oil paint. After we were somehow comfortable, I started to enjoy the nice scenery around. The apple trees, the green grass, the shrubs pruned carefully, the fresh air that filled our lungs, then the building of the restaurant composed by woods and white carved stones…

Two tables away from us, Keli had taken her place already. Her long clear chestnut hair was again long down to her shoulders. She had put on an elegant dress down to her knees, while her boots were long in gray color. She was drinking orange juice, I suppose. One moment, she waved toward the playground (where children were playing), to a little girl who called to her “mom” and was waving to her too. I was very much surprised to see along the little girl, a man who looked like Marti. Many years had passed. Could he be exactly he? Had they come together again and I just didn’t get the news? I started to watch him attentively from far distance. The man who pushed the swing where the little girl was sitting, had straight hair, a bit long in the back of the head and filled with gray hair. Just like Marti. His portrait, if it was seen in profile, was again just like Marti’s. My younger son, who was now recovered, ran toward the playground and I followed him. While I was entering the playground, I noticed that the aforementioned man, actually was shorter than Marty and thinner. Could he be “eaten up” by the years? An instant later, we were had to head with each other and our glances come across. We did not greet one another. The man playing with the little girl, was not Marty. I was sure about this now. However, he was an almost perfect copy of him, just a little bit diminished. This discovery shocked me. As I was recalling the old friends who I was still in touch with, the astonishment I would cause when I tell them about my discovery and such things of similar nature, I noticed that, just under the left whisker, to my surprise, Keli’s husband had a big birthmark. … And It befit him.