Medea’s sleepless nights OR The wolf is grazing with the sheep OR Ruptured Sakartvelequilibrium

Medea is a proud and beautiful woman, divorced and with three children. She stands at yet another crossroads in her life – choosing between her two suitors Ruslan and Hermann. Ruslan is the father of her children and is her ex-husband, whom she broke up with in a nasty divorce. He would beat her after each drinking spree, yet her parents and two sisters Naala and Agunda urge her to go back to the man she once wed. Ruslan is not rich, though strong and well connected as an old olympic judoka. Most worryingly, Ruslan struggles with substance dependencies and by now has few career opportunities beyond his lifelong job at the gas company. Medea’s children favor Hermann, the itinerant businessman. Herman visits together with his cousin Samuel, spoiling them all with candy and showing pictures of Herman’s splendid residence. They both make vague promises about a life in luxury. Medea is not convinced of the commitment from such jetsetters. Both have other affairs and suffer from quite serious attention deficit disorder. Rumor also has it that their business is facing serious challenges. Back in her childhood she went to Ruslan when two other boys, Ali and Osman were fighting about her and both being abusive. At that time Medea clearly preferred the enlightened Ruslan rather than the forceful orientals. She did not know Ruslan well then, it was a chance taking. A deliberate move to change her life radically. And there she stands again with the choice of a stoic brutal breadwinner next door or the strange and unpredictable Hermann with his dreamlike, perhaps delusional, promises. Last year Hermann gave her a ring, but the words he uttered were not a proposal, just a sweet compliment. Trough the last few years, both Ali and Osman also displayed impressive successes and began to speak up at festivities. Particularly, Osman who in the salons these days displays audacity no less than Hermann, Samuel and Ruslan. In fact, the only soft spoken cavalier is perhaps Dr Chang, who Medea has come to increasingly rely on for maintaining her physical health. His comprehensive long-term services were offered with a dependence inducing discount. Tonight Medea lies restless, tossing and turning. Voices of present and past echo in discord. After a third dose of clozapine washed down with wine, Medea’s eyelids fall down with the force of a majestic old burgundy cigar smelling theatre curtain. Though without a minute of slumbering her body freezes and pupils turn mercurial.

She may still go either way, to either man and either path. Or will she stand tall on her own two feet in the spirit of her role model grandmother Tamar, who daringly divorced, remarried and turned CEO?