Things We Never Shared

At a Parisian train station on December 18, a promise is late, hands are chapped from the cold, and someone else's cup of cocoa warms the air. TOSKOVAT' Things We Never Shared is an extract of everything that should have been said before Christmas, but wasn't.

Advocaat, mulled wine, and narcissus open up a strange holiday warmth. Hyacinths and flowers brought by others from the market pass through the alcoholic air, while the waiting remains cold.

David-Lev Jipa-Slivinschi returns to a promise made six months earlier in Vienna. Around him, people share drinks and small affections, while the absent person turns plans and a short, intense relationship into an emptiness on the platform.

Sacher torte, cassis macaron, plum jam, honey croissant, and panettone build an excessively rich holiday table. Tobacco smoke, myrrh, sandalwood, spikenard, fir, and ebony beneath it cast a serious shadow.

On the skin, the steam of hot cocoa and milky caramel meet hand cream and snowdrops. If you want a neat gourmand, this mess of cakes, resins, and sadness will be too personal; here, sweetness is not comfort but proof of absence.

In the end, what remains is cream on chapped hands, another child's cocoa, and the scent of panettone on a cold platform — so much shared in imagination, and nothing in a real encounter.