Slantze na detstvoto

In the 1950s, four boys from a poor neighbourhood on the margins of the city live in a world of dreams, fantasy and adventures. With shining eyes, these youths grip their knights' spears. Their imaginary steeds charge along the muddy streets, past Atanas, who talks to the sun, past the brothers who make slippers in their shop called "Brotherly Love", past Kolyo the barber… The boys are angry at the evil giants for all their hateful deeds, for the fact that the good suffer while the bad triumph and some have a lot while others have nothing. In these hungry years the salami hanging from the butcher's store sign is a great temptation for the boys. They prepare their campaign with imagination and zeal: two of them distract the butcher while the others get the salami. What a disappointment, though! It turns out to be made of cardboard and full of sawdust. The boys dream of sailing faraway seas and of seeing the Bay of Biscay and they build a pirate ship to get away. However, they ultimately set off in the chariot that the father of one of the boys is building for the local museum. In the first village they reach, they are detained and brought back. Duly punished, the four boys watch the autumn rain wash away the motley frescoes on the abandoned chariot. —Anonymous