A comment piece published in Romanian on Contributors.ro

In the Icoanei garden in Bucharest’s 19th century centre, there is a fountain which gushes out water and tumbles into a stream that winds to the other end of the park to meet a large pond. Children play here. They jump over the stream. Sometimes they kick sand in the water. They throw sticks in the pond. Bottles and cigarette ends bob up and down in the water, but this is not a dump infested by lice and rats.

One day in late spring, spawn appeared in the water. Hundreds of jellied spheres emerged along the stream, in the pond and in the fountain. The children stopped splashing the water and asked their parents:

What are these? Can we touch them?

These are eggs, we explained to our kids. First they start with a white ball hosting a black dot. Next week…