She recalls with anger how she 16 years ago left at the war not only her two hands and part of the right leg but also her belief to the life in general. Her mother, Ms. Nina was trying to save a little hope about the life but she left the secular life 8 years ago. “Now you are telling me to believe. What can I believe in? Shall I believe in God? Show me the God so I believe. You see, the God is not here. I mostly believe in the devil that takes away the good people. Now let the God come out and punish me,” says Mary by looking through the glass of the room furniture. A little later you notice wetness around the corner of her black eyes. We keep silence. On the closet there are the pictures of Mary in the frames. We are trying to look at those in order to find the difference between the 8-year old Mary and current 24-year old young lady. In almost all the photos the eyes of Mary are wet as the morrow dew on the land. “It was July 23, 1993. On that day was the birthday of my dad. I and the children of my uncle went down to the garage. There was a little dog there and I was trying to bring it home. And then I got thirsty and approached the spring to drink water. At that time the bomb exploded. They call it a cassette mine. At that moment I put my hands on the ground; they melted, they were not cut; if they were cut they could have fixed them. They melted and I fell in the water. I don’t remember anything else. Yeah, and I remember my dad holding me…” was telling Mary by following the steps of the fair cat. Her tears looked like a war challenge to the rest of the world. “I don’t want war. When I hear hat there is war in some part of the world I feel sorry for these people. The ones, who declare wars never, suffer. The war has the color black and I don’t like the black,” with sudden agility tells the girl and then she laughs at the cat, who carefully watches her speak on the chair. Afterwards, Mary starts to speak about the cat, which she was presented from Lebanon, which died after a short while; then she recalls the parrot, which after awhile she gave to her friend. “I have now changed a lot. After the explosion I wouldn’t leave the house for about a year and a half. I was feeling terrible. I didn’t go to school. Well, I was only 8 back then. I thought life has stopped for me. My mom and dad have suffered a lot. Then my dad persuaded that I should go out the house and that nothing horrible has happened to me. Then I started to go out. When I was walking on the street everybody would look at me in shock. But then I got used to this. Now if they look at me with surprise I turn to them and reprimand by saying that what’s wrong,” says Mary, who can be very often met in the minibus of Kapan. She gets in the minibus to be driven around. “Then one of the passengers gives me the money and says please pass it to the driver. I launch, nod and call the driver. Such things happen to me a lot,” tells Mary, who this year graduated from the University of Architecture, Kapan branch. She is majoring in economics and is sure that her major is one of the demanded ones nowadays. “Back in the past I wouldn’t leave home and would read all the time and as a result have learned Russian on my own. Now I can do everything with my legs; I make coffee, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and even wash clothes. The only thing that I cannot do is put on my clothes,” tells Mary, who gets all optimistic all the sudden. Mary remembers her school years when she was very naughty. “I have given away many of my pictures. I was a cheerful girl in almost all the pictures,” tells Mary by paging her photo albums with her legs. “Most of our class parties were organized by me and my mom. I think that my mom got sick because of my current state. In the summer of my ninth grade in school I went to California for a new prosthesis. When I got back it was September 10. In 4 days my mom died. She had blood leukemia. They say she couldn’t be saved; so I don’t know…” tells Mary by pointing at her mother’s photo. She adds that she is very much like her mom. “Sometimes I drink coffee because of chocolate,” jokes Mary. A little later she escorts me to her room and shows me her prostheses, which she doesn’t wear in hot summer. “They are very heavy; it is hard for me to hold them. They are about 3-4 kilos. When the weather gets slightly cold I wear those. But they look like real hands. You see, I even change the color of my nails from time to time so that they know that those are my real hands.” After a little while everything becomes the same again – the small coffee table and the horizon of Mary’s thoughts, where she knows that it is wrong to make friends with girls. “You know, girls are very jealous; they are very jealous of me. That is why I socialize with boys. I have many friends, who also have families and I make friends with their families as well,” says Mary and covertly smiles when speaking about love. “Only now I understand that the meaning of life is love. I love…” tells Mary without any commas and periods. And right here I am trying to say good bye to Mary by realizing that I have met a strong person, who has great deal of belief towards life. “In life difficulties are needed. The more difficulties you have the more you enjoy the good moments of life. So now imagine that everything starts to become great in the life of a person. So try to imagine a person, who only has good and sweet moments in life. That person gets used to that. Trust me it is very boring,” mentions Mary, 24, at the staircase of her house, who needs a lot of help today. On the way out by looking at the empty swing of their backyard I remember the words of Mary, who said that her dad doesn’t work and one of the two brothers is in the army. The other one is married and unemployed but according to her they don’t have any reason to complain. The only income that Mary has from her numerous sponsors is 10.000 AMD. “When I was young everybody was trying to sponsor me but now I am old and they don’t care about me. I only receive 10.000 AMD and I reach Goris for this money. You know, I mostly need attention rather than financial aid,” said Mary without grumpiness.
