2020

A father and his nine-year-old daughter spend the midsummer day together. The vacation condo is a single-story building, its well-manicured lawn surrounded by a wide, red brick wall. No one else is in sight, and the sun hangs directly overhead. The mother has stepped out for a moment. Father and daughter must find a way to pass the hot hours.

The father suggests playing darts with toy arrows. They place plastic cups on a cereal box to make targets. After measuring the distance the rubber-tipped arrows can fly, they set the targets there and take turns shooting. The child holds the dart awkwardly at first, but gradually pulls the string with growing familiarity. As the number of hits increases, so does her impatience. Yet she cannot stop. Because she knows no other way to pass the hot hours. Similarly, the father grows weary of reacting to each repeated miss and hit, each victory and defeat in this childish game. He soon stops playing rock-paper-scissors, letting the child shoot arrows on her own. Then he sits on the terrace chair behind them and smokes a cigarette. The sharp ‘thwack’ of the arrow fired by the child's thin, fern-like arm, the smell of the cigarettes lit one after another, and the stinging sweat beads forming on the back of his neck all intertwine in the scorching midday heat.