One could think that when it tells his/her histories grandfather it begins with "So many and many years ago" or "there was once." Instead no, he begins this way: "Between thousand and thousand years." They are histories ambientate in the future. But it is a future some strange, that resembles above all to the past.
"Past and future, at times, he can mix also" Charles says.
Still this confusion on the time, that I don't like at all. I prefer a future with the legs trained to the trip, spiteful even, but that is a well defined creature, that has a face, here. Someone against which to be able him to train for fighting to equal weapons. But, speaking of the time, really today an unbelievable thing has happened. Of those that make you collapse under the floor of the certainties to the feet. Today, June 30 th 1992, there has been one minute from sixty-one seconds. Am not joking, is the truth! It looks like the Earth has the fiatone, you/he/she has begun to turn more slowly on herself some and we are found again all confused in comparison to the solar time so there. Perlomeno is what has said the television. And then the scientists have founded one minute of sixty-one seconds. And is not even the first time that do him/it! It seems that this is the seventeenth one straight. Seventeen times that we lose there the seconds for road and someone puts make up on us the turns of the hands. I could not believe there. If we start to put also in discussion the clocks.
"About thing worries yourself? It is only a second" grandfather says.
But for me also a second has its importance in the life. In a second it can happen a lot of things. In a second, a writer can put a word that develops the history of a book. An inventor can find the decisive idea that had been running after for years. In a second the oven can be turned on for cooking a roast or to say of "yes" on an altar. Now, if we lose there for road this second, that is not anything in comparison to all the seconds of the time, as do we put her/it with the book, with the invention, with the roast one and with the altar?
I would want to also tell him some effect butterfly of which grandmother has spoken to me and of the kairos of which Charles has spoken to me, but I don't want to put too meat to the fire. For now the roast one seems me enough convincing as example.
In front of my theory of the lacking second, grandfather smiles and you/he/she tells me that I must not confuse the time in itself with the tools to measure him/it. But in reality it says this way because to him it doesn't interest the to flow some seconds, considering that in his/her histories the clocks go to upside-down and the characters are born between thousand and thousand years. Yes, you/he/she must be for that.
At times grandfather tells histories that I already know, that all know. Ago this way:
"Between thousand and thousand years there was a big and ugly duckling. It was so ugly that all the animals that you/they lived in the hen-pen him took game of him.
I let him/it tell even if I already know as it goes to end. And personally this ugly duckling has not convinced after all never me until. It was not at all everything a duckling, it was also a swan when it was small. It is true, you/he/she had been born in a hen-pen of ducks, but it was also always gone out of an egg of swan. Is qual the ethic then? What one should you/he/she have trust in the future? What even if is it ugly and awkward sooner or later it will become beautiful and elegant? The protagonist of the fable has never been a true duckling. What does he/she know him about thing it means to try to become swans when you/he/she was born ducklings?
Lately the histories of grandfather are some you entangle and the inhabitants of his/her fables say more foolish things of the usual one. It will be because grandfather sleeps so much. As. Almost always. It gets up every day later, he/she immediately eats and then part for the river with the reed. But I know that it doesn't go to fish. The reed the plaza there, on the eyelash of the water, and it deals him with his/her kites. More time passes to the afloat house that on the firm earth, in the true house, that in which there are us.
Today it doesn't blow also any wind. Him out the same throws the yellow and green airplane. Or the hot-air balloon. At times I feel that he/she speaks to him, as if they were of their children. I don't understand what it tells him, however.
It estranges some from the afloat house, throwing himself/herself/itself behind the kite as a tame animal. It tries the magic gesture what the pitchers of kites only know. It tosses up in the air and it makes to flow the thread. Its fingers exactly know when it is the moment of lasciar to go and what that to tighten. It is as a memory that has in the hands. But there is not enough wind. It returns home for lunch and then it goes to sleep. Only a rests, it says. He/she sleeps up to evening.
Grandmother becomes angry, draws him/it as a child. To supper it makes him the usual scolding. To him it strains on him as the water. Once he/she answered, they went on to discuss for times. He/she doesn't answer anymore today. It watches the television. The Americans that celebrate the five hundred years from the unloading of Cristoforo Colombo Columbus, French that have decided to interrupt the nuclear experiments on a distant atoll that calls Mururoa. After supper ago a whistle to Barabau, and together they take toward the river.
"But does thing do?does grandmother " ask "where you/he/she goes?"
I know him/it. It goes to give the good night to the kites.
21
Grandfather trains in the gesture to launch the kite
Grandfather trains in the gesture to launch the kite and me I train me to the vertical one against the wall. If a day I want to be Giacomo Leopardi, it needs that you develop well all the muscles, so then it will be a game from boys to fake to have the hump.
I take well the measures for the support of the hands on the smooth one of the sidewalk, I lift the braccias and I rotate the legs, on, up to the wall. Today I try to detach her from the plaster. I withstand in equilibrium some second. I must support again then her against a piece of wall. I feel the blood that goes to the head.
Mother doesn't want that I/you/he/she do him/it. It says that it hurts me. Stop to play her/it down to head, it says. As if my pits a game! The adults certain times don't understand a beautiful anything. Mother doesn't know how to say because you/he/she hurts, she knows how to say only "stop her/it." Stop to do her/it the vertical one, stop to be her/it immovable without speaking. It is too much comfort to say that it hurts to say the why. And then also her, certain times, it is immovable without speaking. I have seen her, after the crossing, to spend some whole afternoons in front of a window without saying a word. I don't know him/it what it did, if it also copied the grass of the lawn her. I know only that later, to supper, it looked in the dish and it didn't feel like speaking. It did of the you look for in the mashed potatoes with the fork but he/she didn't eat him/it at all. It is very sad to eat only in two to eat without men.
At times some friend came her/it to find. They spoke plain, they didn't want that I felt her. It did as a rustle of foundation. The friend told her that after it had happened what had happened, you/he/she had been very strong, indeed brave, an example for every woman. And that you/he/she had to keep on being him/it for my his/her own good. Because, I was still in short there me, even if you/he/she had lost him.
His/her children are the thing most important, the friend of mother it continued. Also she wanted to have one of it.
Who knows because the adults always say to want a child, never a child. As if it always stayed small, as if it never grew. All, around me, they always say "to have a child." I don't know him/it why. Perhaps to have a child is too much a binding thing. The adults are satisfied with a child and enough.
Blood suits me to the head and I returns feet against earth. To the joining between wall and sidewalk there is a crack to form of them that there was not yesterday. It is not a true crack. It is the beginning of a crack. I should perhaps tell him/it grandmother. But meanwhile I focus me on the vertical one. I lift the braccias, I take the push and I restart afresh. They are down to head.
Barabau comes nearby me, it wags the tail that it is a p
arty, it pushes on me the face to understand what I am doing. I have the cheek to the correct height for a leccatina and it takes advantage of it. I rub the eyes, I tell him to stop her/it. I feels like laughing even if I am making a serious thing, serious. I return feet against earth.
22
Today it is Friday
Today it is Friday. Friday day of market. Mother and grandmother have gone to make a turn in country and me I take advantage to complete a sacrilege of it: I put on the fire the boiler for the tea. I do him/it only because they are not there. If he/she sees me grandmother, it lynches me. "We don't drink tea, we are coffee types" it pronounces categorical. For her it deals with a serious thing. Serious. Coffee is not a joke. It is a philosophy a principle of life. You always buy him/it some same brand. It has not changed her/it for twenty years and it doesn't have intention to do him/it unless doesn't close the firm that produces him/it.
Perhaps it is true that we are coffee types. In fact the boiler with the belly full of water that bubbles on the stove is not at all a good sign. When I drink tea it means that I am not at all well. What I/you/they have gone out of myself. For some, I want to say. As that time that the bicycle has taken for going over the river, there where dad lives now. I didn't want at all to interfere in his/her new life. I wanted only to know.
The bridge, however, was longer than as it seemed from earth and once of I didn't know anymore there where I was exactly me. That so precise map that I was drawn me in the mind for weeks now was as dissolved in the water of the river.
Charles has recovered me, you/he/she passed of there by chance. You/he/she has pretended not to be him aware that I cried.
"However, have done street of it! You have the cloth of the athlete."
With two kind braccias you/he/she has loaded the bicycle in the trunk of the car and you/he/she has opened me the door. You/he/she has not said a word of that that you/he/she has seen. Even later. Even when we have arrived to house of grandmother. Mother has looked me at worried eyes.
"You have lost" you/he/she has declared.
Yes, mother. I have lost. I wondered aimlessly for roads of country and all of a sudden I have taken that wrong. It is easier this way. Easier than to tell you that I wanted to go to him. What I wanted to understand.
The boiler puffs, it calls me to the reality back. While I am pouring warm water in a cup, I turn on the TV. There is a film with some white actors that the cowboys do shooting to other equal white actors to them but dressed from Indian. "A film without women is not a beautiful film" grandmother would say shaking the head. I push the liquid in throat. Today the tea seems also me worse than the usual one. I send him/it down as a medicine.
Charles has given me another book of poetries. This time has written him a younger gentleman of that with the hump. At least to judge from the portrait that there is behind the book. As to that other, this liked a lot also here the stars, but he was not her to beware of the window: it jumped us above dancing. You/he/she had to be a really good. So good that was not the dawn to wake up him/it, but it was him to wake up the dawn. So good that passed the seasons to the hell and it went out extending from there gold ropes and garlands of window in window, of star in star. And it kept on dancing.
I close the book and liquid the rest of the tea in the sink, as if I/you had completed the penitence. We probably mistake something in the preparation. Or it is the tea that feels him discredited by the family and then it takes revenge becoming undrinkable, above all from me. Above all the Friday.
The film on the cowboys and the Indians is ended, part the newscast. The Pope is transferred to Castel Gandolfo for the vacations. The Americans keep on celebrating the unloading of Cristoforo Colombo Columbus. I extinguish the television. I take a seat out me, on the smooth one of the sidewalk next to the garden. It is one afternoon of stray cats and lazy lizards. I support my salvapensieri to earth. I look at his/her transparent belly full of paper. Nothing. I don't succeed in turning on a thought. Perhaps if I/you had held a true diary. I wonder me as it was the diary of edge of Cristoforo Colombo Columbus, when you/he/she has crossed the Atlantic around three caravels Niña, Pint and Saint Maria. I think about the Americans that keep on celebrating us that we have discovered them. How strange to celebrate to have been open from someone. I wonder me if they know him/it, at least that have been us to discover them. According to me, no. They would not celebrate so much otherwise. Who knows if they know that the name we have given him/it for you us.
I wonder me as you/he/she must have been for Christopher Columbus when, after his/her crossing, you/he/she has finally sighted earth. You/he/she must have been grandiose, unbelievable, the most monumental of the visions. From here in the Lowland Padana, perceived not instead nothing, he/she is not seen anything, it doesn't feel him nothing. Only that ticking of clock that precedes an explosion. I feel me insecure, halfhearted, inconclusive. And inconclusa, above all. I feel me as if I were a puzzle in which you/they miss some pieces, and it is a feeling that I don't like at all. I don't understand where can be ended, that pieces there. And they were also even of the important pieces.
Puff. All guilt of mother, of grandmother, of their tulips commit suicide and of their mania to make the wiseacre! A film without women is an ugly film. In this place the wind will never blow. We don't drink tea, we are coffee types. And me, I have lost.
23
Rain
Rain. It is everything that that we see from this morning: rain. Grandmother is happy, "You earth is thirsty" it says. Me some less, because there is not here anything to do when it rains.
I spy the clouds from behind the glass of the window. They stir in the sky fast, fast. Ago what stops raining, ago what I/you/he/she stop raining. They continue to get excited and to change physiognomy. It is us of it one to form of it flashes, one to form of hot-air balloon and another that it seems some one umbrella an umbrella from which the rain falls. I smile. Charles has explained that these forms that one sees in the clouds they call fasmate. They call this way because they have to whether to do with the imagination, that is a different thing from the imagination. Imagination is when you can see a tree with the eyes of the mind, also without need to see indeed it for. Imagination is when, with the eyes of the mind, you succeed in upsetting down the tree to head. As when it does him the vertical one against the wall. It seems that not all succeed us to upset the tree. And perhaps even to do the vertical one against the wall.
The fasmates are beautiful, but the clouds don't have intention to listen to my prayers. The colonel of the forecasts says that it will rain at least up to next week. Sigh. From the glass, I look at the platform of forehead. The people of the trailers is closed in key. When it rains, they don't go out at all. I imagine Mujo that bewares of the window with the forehead glued to the glass as me in this moment. Who knows if he/she also sees the fasmates him.
With the finger, I write on the glass misted by my breath: OJUM OAIC. This way he/she is read from out. I mist another po' breathing us above, so he/she is seen better.
From the other room it arrives to me the voice of the television. From some time they don't speak of anything else other than of a certain Tangentopoli. Charles has explained that polis means "city" in Greek, but I already knew him/it. I know that Naples means "new city" and that Paperopoli means "city of the goslings." Tangentopoli is some as Paperopoli, only that instead of the goslings there they live us the deceitful people that take the shares. The shares are the bribes of money that the deceitful gentlemen insert him in the pockets in exchange for favors. Therefore Tangentopoli is the city where all the deceitful gentlemen live with the pockets full of stolen money.
Everything is initiated this winter, the day when you/they have arrested a gentleman that calls Mario Chiesa. He has shaken the head, you/he/she has said that there was a mistake, that him Tangentopoli didn't even know as it did him to arrive us, that he/she lived from a whole other part. The problem is that it still had in pocket an envelope with inside seven million
liras. It was as if you/they had found him/it with the registered car Tangentopoli.
After the same thing it has also happened to a lot of other people that I don't remember me as they call. Charles has explained that the operation that has brought to the arrest of all these gentlemen of the shares calls "Clean Hands." I am very happy to the operation Clean Hands. Lives the soaps, lives the bagnoschiumas to the walnut of coconut and the white musk. From when Charles has explained well me thing he wants to say, I don't lose me anymore an episode of this operation in television. It is as a kind of telefilm, but with some true actors. I am just able, I go to see the TV to house of Charles, so it tells well me the history of the characters. Charles doesn't have a good time as me to look at this telenovela, however. At times understands that it also becomes angry. But it becomes usually some sad, it seems as resigned.
"Zoe?"
Grandmother always comes me to call on the most beautiful, when there is the sensation that develops the episode. It sustains that it absolutely needs of me to prepare the table or to go to look for her something in a drawer. Puff. And if then I lose me the end of Clean Hands? Charles opens a book and you/he/she inserts in the stereo a piece of a certain Michel that he listens when you/he/she is sad and that you/he/she calls Memories of Paris. It says not to worry me, that it will be a television series of those long, long. The last episode, seems that the scriptwriters have not written her yet.
24
You/he/she has stopped raining and this evening
You/he/she has stopped raining and there is a sunset this evening more pander that never. The sun is red, red hot. The lilac sky, dusted of clouds to form of pink striscioline and orange tree. And with the river, that every tone reflects, everything double is worth. Never sight so much bawdiness in a sunset.
As every evening, Charles takes a seat on the platform of the house-train to reread the sheets that you/he/she has written during the day a cigarette turned on among two fingers. As every evening, mother looks at intermittence. You/he/she has set a whole engineering of the look not to make himself/herself/themselves discover, but some is seen the same.