The girl who was afraid of Buttons
Anne was afraid of buttons. She avoided them at any cost and wore button-less clothes. In her eyes, the inventors of Velcro and zippers were worthy of Nobel prize. The problem started when Anne was 9. While fetching a jar full of buttons in her art class, she slipped and spilled it. The whole class erupted into laughter, mocking her clumsiness. She stood there motionless as time slowed down around her. The laughter of the kids, the scoffing of her teacher and her inability to control the situation made her indignant. And thus began her fear and hatred for buttons.
Her parents tried hard to persuade her. Her father was a Project Manager at Deutsche Bank and her mother was an Illustration Artist, a well known face in the Berlin Art circles. They even consulted a psychologist to get her start wearing buttoned clothes. Koumpounophobia: the phobia of buttons, the psychologist concluded, and recommended talk therapy. However the visit to the psychologist even furthered her resolve, and she detested the shrill voice of her. What does that old hag know about fashion and who needs buttons anyways? Anne thought. Her parents gave up after she refused to budge.
It was a late November day today and the weather was rather chilly with 12ºC. The traffic was heavy at Hauptbahnhof and the bus was crawling like a snail through the traffic. With this pace she would be late for her Tennis practice.
“Running L8, traffic’s crawling” She texted Erica, her tennis buddy.
A man in a suit boarded the bus and searched for available seats. Luckily Anne had her bag on the next seat and he took another one. The huge ugly buttons on his suit irked her and she shuddered at the thought of him sitting next to her. She looked elsewhere and her eyes landed on the woman sitting diagonally from her. Her bag had huge vermilion buttons and she wished she hadn’t noticed them. The girl standing near the door had buttons on her too, and even her dog had a buttoned collar. “Fucking buttons” Anne cursed under the breath and looked outside the window.
Her phone buzzed, it was Erica:
Erica: “K. Come at Court#4 No. 3 is busy”
Anne: “K”
Erica: “How’s the crowd”?
Anne: “Meh, crazy Buttoned people smothering me”
Erica: “Lolz, sheeple with zero fashion sense”
Anne: “True that babe”
The bus finally reached her stop near the Tennis club, Tiergarten. Rushing out of the bus, she made sure not to touch any of the buttoned fools. As she dashed towards the Tennis court, her phone buzzed, and she swiped it open with her left hand, balancing her tennis kit in her right.
Erica: “Waiting at the changing room”
BANG!
Anne didn’t see the girl coming from her left flank. The impact was enough to knock her phone and tennis kit, but the grass made sure there was no damage.
“Excuse Me! Can’t you see before you step???”
Anne spat at the girl who looked like a deer in the headlights. The girl was not more than 9 years old, and had deep black eyes with matted black hair. Clutching her gray colored coat, she bawled
“Çeketimin düğmelerini kayıp ettim!”
“Huh?” Replied Anne, not sure what to make of that gibberish.
“Çeketimin düğmelerini kayıp ettim!!”
“I’m sorry I don’t understand you” Replied Anne
“kayıp ettim! Çeketimin düğmelerini kayıp ettim! Lütfen yardım yet!” said the girl with eyes full of tears. She was frantically looking at the ground and pointed at the her coat.
Then it dawned upon Anne. The girl must have lost the buttons during the collision. She was frail and her clothes were dirty, and it was clear that the coat was her key to survival in the cold Berlin winter. Tears were forming in her frightened eyes and she was perplexed at the loss of the buttons. Anne looked around, but there was no one up close. The girl was now on her knees searching for the buttons in the grass. Her sobbing and efforts to hold the button-less coat with her one hand made her task difficult.
Anne dropped her kit without realizing it and started searching for the buttons. Her hands moved fast and in a swift motion she parted the grass to reveal one of the buttons. She grabbed it fast and handed it over to the girl, before resuming the search, as if she was under a spell. She found two more in quick succession and gave it to the girl. Anne showed 5 digits to the girl to get a count of buttons. Four fingers, the girl replied in their pidgin language. That means one more to go, deciphered Anne.
“Yaşasın!” exclaimed the girl. She had found the last one and seemed ecstatic. Anne got up and dusted her knees, she was still reeling under the shock of what just happened. The girl hugged Anne and ran away towards the tree-line. Anne noticed for the first time the giant white dome of the refugee camp in the backdrop.
It was then that Anne noticed she was shaking from the catharsis.
