Perusino interviews Chasca - The Goddess of Dawn
Chasca at the bus stop: an interview with a bad mood and slow light
Morning hangs over the city like an indecisive blanket, and Chasca has apparently decided to report for duty right here. The asphalt gleams cold, streetlights still burn out of habit, and the bus stop on the outskirts of town looks like a waiting room for people who have fallen out with time. A timetable is stuck behind glass, pretending that punctuality is a law of nature. The air smells of metal, a bit of damp concrete, and for a brief moment of bread, because somewhere a delivery van passes a bakery, bringing the scent along like a provocation.
Perusino sits on the bench, shoulders hunched, backpack between his feet. His phone is dead, not dramatically dead, but dead as a stone. Silence remains, and at this minute, the silence is not a friendly one. Attention is in it, as if the world is holding its breath until it decides whether it really wants to brighten up now.
A car rushes past, much too fast for this time of day. A dog clacks its claws somewhere over the pavement, as if it has an appointment. Then nothing again. Just this gray sky that doesn't look like clouds, but like a half-finished thought.
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Perusino: This is a scam. A day should just start. Lights on, done. Why is there this in-between at all?
Suddenly, someone is sitting next to him. Chasca. No step, no crunch, no grand arrival. A spot that was just empty is now occupied, as if it should never have been empty. A figure with a calm posture, alert eyes, clothes that seem neither modern nor old, but rather made precisely for transitions.
Dawn (Chasca): Early.
Perusino: Far too early. This isn't morning. This is a glitch between two states.
A breath of wind pushes a piece of paper across the ground. The rustling sounds exaggeratedly loud in this silence, as if even trash now has an opinion.
Dawn: Transitions often feel like glitches.
Perusino: Sentences like that sound like grown-ups. I bet some life wisdom will follow, and then someone will applaud.
A glance goes from Chasca to the sky. There's no pathos in it, more like an examination. The sky is minimally brighter, so little that the eyes argue whether it even counts yet.
Perusino: Everyone says morning is important. Nobody likes it. Intentional?
Dawn: Necessity.
Perusino: That's not an answer, that's a signpost without direction.
Dawn: Uncomfortable answers often act like signposts.
Perusino snorts softly. A yawn comes, but it's not a cozy yawn, rather an angry one, as if the body wants to protest.
Perusino: The sun could just handle it. Zap, there. Inti can do that. Why does it take so long?
Dawn: Inti comes when everything is ready.
Perusino: And who decides that?
Dawn: I do.
The sentence is uttered without emphasis. That's what makes it uncomfortably strong. No threat, no boasting. Just a statement of fact.
Perusino: So what do you do all this time? Sitting around doesn't sound like world order.
Dawn: Separate.
Perusino: Separate what?
Dawn: Too early and too late. Dark and light. End and beginning.
A bird calls. One is enough. The call sounds like a first thin thread, binding the gray sky to something that can be called day.
Perusino: Work nobody sees. Great. Exactly my favorite genre.
Dawn: Invisible work holds many things together.
Perusino looks at the street, as if an explanation might drive by there. The bus stop suddenly seems less like a place to wait and more like a place where things are sorted out.
Perusino: One question, Chasca. If I hate this moment and just skip it because sleep is better, will there be any punishment?
Dawn: No punishment.
Perusino: Good. Then I can go back to sleep.
Dawn: The day begins anyway. Just without you.
The word strikes, because it's not malicious. It contains matter-of-factness, and matter-of-factness is only annoying when it's true.
Perusino: Unfair.
Dawn: Freedom.
Another car drives in the distance. A bus is not yet visible, but a deep rumble announces it somewhere, as if the city is slowly opening its eyes. The grey shifts slightly. Contours become sharper. Houses regain their edges. The streetlights suddenly seem embarrassing because they are still on.
Perusino: And what if everyone always slept in? If no one witnessed this beginning?
Dawn: Then days would become louder. Faster. More impatient.
Perusino: Impatience sounds like me.
Dawn: Impatience jumps. Beginnings build.
A brief moment of silence ensues. Not an awkward one, rather one that fits. Perusino rubs his eyes, not from tiredness alone, but more out of defiance against the time of day.
Perusino: Being offended is probably a hobby for gods. Does it bother you when no one is watching?
Dawn: Attention is not a command.
Perusino: And what is the command?
Dawn: Stability.
Chasca's gaze meets his briefly. No sparkle, no threat. A sober look, as if she is reading him like a weather report.
Perusino: So you're something like a buffer.
Dawn: A transition that holds.
The bus finally appears. Interior lights, warm air, the promise of normal time. Doors hiss later, when it stops. The sound seems excessively loud because the world outside is still quiet.
Perusino stands up, shoulders his backpack, but remains standing for a moment. The sky is now clearly brighter, not beautiful in a cinematic sense, but rather honest. The light comes without fireworks, but it comes.
Perusino: And now?
Dawn: Now it's enough for today.
A space next to him appears empty in the next moment, without any movement being seen. No disappearing act to marvel at. A feeling remains, as if someone has untied a knot that hadn't been noticed before.
Entering the bus happens normally. Seats, a few sleepy faces, a jacket smelling of detergent. Warmth slowly creeps back into the fingers. Outside, the bus stop passes by, small and unspectacular. Yet, the day feels less alien.
A beginning is not automatically pleasant. A beginning has become recognizable. That's precisely Chasca's work, even if no one applauds for it and no one gets up extra early for it.
A bus window briefly shows a reflection, then only the road. A day continues, without applause and without a big scene. Yet, a beginning lingers, because it wasn't given.
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The Goddess of Dawn, Chasca, represents the moment when nothing seems decided, yet everything is being prepared. Chasca is not a figure of outcome, but of transitions, where order emerges before anyone notices it. Chasca acts not loudly, but stabilisingly, precisely where beginning and impatience meet.