Piero and the Wolf - A Tale of Guilt and Grace

 

Piero hadn't even had time to wake up.
With the dampness of the just-passed night evaporating from his clothes, he pointed the barrel of his rifle toward the bush and fired.
Morning had begun with timid light bouncing off the blanket of mist at the mountain's feet, the muffled chime of the village bell tower, and a warmth that smelled of home, breakfast, and sugar meant to sink generously into the black surface of coffee.
The bullet had pierced the foliage, scattering acrid swirls of bluish smoke, and ended its course lodged in a fallen trunk. The wolf had escaped unharmed yet again. It simply left. It had turned its back on Piero, who fumbled clumsily around his belt for another round for his rifle. The wolf had peeked out between two trees, like a curious onlooker leaning out a window onto the square. Then it vanished, kicking up a little cloud of dead leaves and dirt.
The previous day had passed like that, in anticipation of another chance.
Piero had christened a stump as his seat, waiting for the wolf to reappear, and, staring at clusters of red berries and lance-shaped leaves stirred gently by a timid breeze, he had fallen asleep.
The next day, as dawn chased away the last stars and the same ever-present fog rolled thickly across the valley floor, Piero had taken position in a trench. He had dug it with his bare hands, taming roots and negotiating with a pair of stubborn stones that refused to budge. When the wolf’s scent wafted into the air and the familiar rustling among the leaves betrayed its presence, the rifle barrel erupted with a bang, and the wild berries exploded, giving the illusion of blood. Even that day, the animal slipped away without bothering to run, and once again, Piero’s scorched fingers tangled as he tried to reload the rifle, desperate for a second shot.
He had cried.
It happened when the wolf, safe behind the trunk of an ancient chestnut tree, looked at him with its small green eyes. With its fur slightly ruffled along its back and a bit of dry earth around its nose, it looked as though it, too, had amused itself by digging a hole.
The night following his latest failure, with yet another dose of frustration weighing down his already heavy soul, Piero had neither slept nor eaten nor dreamed. For him, it was natural to feed on expectations, letting his sagging bundle remain closed next to a flask of wine that was turning into vinegar. The only thing that mattered to him was that the wolf would return, that his hand would be steady, and that the rifle would be willing to repeat yesterday’s scene.
At the next dawn, the gray coat crossed his sightline, always blending into the omnipresent foliage, always camouflaged by the black streaks that melded with the dense underbrush. Piero fired, and a mushroom in the distance disintegrated in a burst of fragrance. Desperate, head in his hands and eyes fixed on a carpet of burrs, he realized the wolf had escaped once more. He didn’t even react when that damp nose lingered on his neck, accompanied by the tickle of stiff whiskers and a breath that wormed its way beneath his jacket.
Shortly after, the animal moved away, turning its back on him.
Before retreating to safety, before slipping out of range, it melted into the twilight until it vanished, and the night’s chill began dictating its terms again.
Rain had tended to every single leaf, cleaned the wood, dusted the fruits, and put the ants on alert. On the forest floor, pine needles floated like tiny ships, and a network of miniature mountains, valleys, and waterways redrew the terrain’s geography. The day climbed in with a slight delay, shaking off the clouds and leaving a sea of cream over the roofs of the still-sleeping village.
From a high branch, the forest was invaded by shafts of light. Some pierced all the way to the base of the trunk, as if intent on igniting the piles of dead leaves at its feet. Others extinguished themselves in the dense vegetation, while still others cast luminous islands on the distant peaks of larch trees. Below, the familiar fog blanketed the valley, and a stream murmured in the distance. The water, emboldened by a curve, plunged into a small waterfall that resolved into a flurry of foam and vapor. A little farther down, a weathered wooden bridge had digested the nails holding it together, its exposed side coated with moss.
"And instead, we had it all wrong. We, because we thought we were big and strong by shooting at animals; you, Piero, because you thought the world was just a simple process of actions and consequences. But the wolf wasn’t in the bush, and I died in its place. Look at him; he lived his life knowing that a man had been struck down instead of him. In some way, he’s grateful to you…"
He was there, at their feet, his mouth curved into something that resembled a smile, ears upright as if he understood every single word. Suddenly, he licked Piero’s palm, and Piero grabbed his muzzle as though he were a house dog seeking affection by the fireplace. At that moment, a light whimper could barely be heard.
"And him, will he have forgiven me?"
The friend had laughed. With his corduroy pants that seemed fresh from the cleaners and that shirt smelling of laundry, he looked like he had just come from Sunday morning Mass, standing on the church square with the freshly folded newspaper tucked under his arm. His hair still shone with pomade.
"I hope so; otherwise, dear Piero, we wouldn’t know which road to take to get back home. Because they’re waiting for you at home, you know?"
"Re…really?"
"Of course! Everyone’s impatient. Your wife, especially… Though time up there is felt very differently from how it is in the world of the living, yes, sometimes we get a little bored too..."
He had trembled.
"Ah, your son is doing well. He’s down there..." His finger pointed toward the village. "Everyone speaks highly of him, and trust me, he still has a lot to do before they call him. So, what do you say, shall we go?"
Piero had hesitated. His purgatory—that immense and repetitive forest that he thought he had learned to know but that had always reserved surprises for him—was about to be left to its slow and inexorable cycle. He had to leave it, and he had to do so immediately.
The wolf had already started walking and was looking at him impatiently a few steps ahead.
"I killed you..."
"And I forgave you. Everyone has forgiven you..."
"Really? Are you sure?"
That smile was worth more than a thousand words.
A rustle of leaves marked the beginning of the journey.
The wolf led the way, sniffing the exposed roots, the stones of the path, and every other corner of the trail. Fern fronds jutted out from the sides, and sometimes they had to push them aside. Wild rabbits, crouched in shelter behind tufts of grass, watched their passage, unconcerned about the wolf just a step away from their noses.
They climbed with a slow but steady pace toward the upper part of the forest, the one Piero had never had the courage to explore.
In no time, they disappeared, embraced by a sea of green. Piero, his friend, and the wolf.
The forest breathed like a child absorbed in dreams.
Before leaving together, they had buried the rifle under a meter of damp earth.

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Inspiration

 ...so I sit down at my computer, adjust my chair's backrest, sniff out the air currents, assess the background noise: the TV from the next room, the fridge that's kicking in more often than usual, the cat crunching kibble, and my neighbor, who insists on mowing a lawn the size of Tennessee with nothing but a weed whacker.

I can see him sweating, wearing his tank top inside out, with bushy shoulder hair and a half-moon of redness spreading across his back. I pay him no mind.

I readjust the backrest.

To clear my conscience, I check my work email. A disgruntled client's unanswered message could ruin my inspiration, or worse, take their business elsewhere.

Nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing: a couple of petitions, an energy company rep with the world's best rates who just arrived in town, Russian woman seeking Italian husband, some alleged bank that isn't yours advising you to change your password.

The neighbor with his weed whacker must have stopped at the edge of a cotton field somewhere near Kingston Springs and is refilling the gas tank. The cicadas almost resume their song, but the 25cc engine roars back to life on the second pull of the cord.

Facebook notification on my author page.

I minimize the blank page, check it out, and discover I've been added to a group without my knowledge. Meanwhile, the Sardinian girl is showing off her new glasses and an unconventional neckline. I scrutinize the photo looking for a flaw. Disappointed, I postpone the task for another time.

Chapter 1

To avoid reformatting from scratch, I save my last successful novel under a new name, tacking on a string of Xs followed by a (1). I keep the first word and delete the other seventy-two thousand. While doing this, doubt creeps in. I pause to verify I've saved a copy on my computer, one on the external hard drive, one on the triple USB stick, one on the double CD-ROM, and one in the cloud.

I adjust the backrest, satisfied: all copies are accounted for, and I can return to deleting those seventy-two thousand words minus the first one with peace of mind.

Pristine page.

I insert the quotation marks, the accented capital E, and worry about that Scandinavian character I know I'll need sooner or later, the one with the Danish-Norwegian slashed O. Out of laziness, I consider taking some flavor out of the character by calling him Mario, and while I ponder this, the cat jumps on my keyboard and licks my chin with the taste of North Sea herring.

The first word of the novel is his.

I save it, wondering if the word might come in handy someday as the name of a fictional town, perched on a picturesque fjord with a large abandoned hotel on the snowy slopes of the mountain behind the settlement.

Second work break for the neighbor in his lawn, and tenth like for the Sardinian girl with her new glasses.

An email arrives from a colleague with a massive attachment. Thirty years ago, it would have crashed NASA's computers all by itself.

I stretch, rest my eyes by gazing at the blue-hazy horizon and contemplate starting with a dream-like opening, something that might go down in history:

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"

"Call me Ishmael"...

I need to think about this. Like songs that are too perfect, relegating their entire album to being their eternal container (don't believe me? Try naming the other eight tracks from Hotel California...), overly successful opening lines might become self-contained aphorisms. Not everyone is Tolstoy.

I verify that all the location photos are in the folder. They're there, keeping company with the floor plans, maps, notes, the draft I sketched while waiting for that client who was an hour and a half late, and the list of three possible titles.

I stretch again.

The noisy neighbor, the intrusive cat, that other feline glaring resentfully because its bowl is empty in the center (believe it or not, cats judge the amount of food in their bowl by evaluating how many kibbles are grouped in the middle. The others, piled on the sides or scattered about like hand grenade aftermath, leave them completely indifferent).

A WhatsApp notification from three hours ago (I tried to save on the blinking LED and now I look like a jerk once a day) and the washing machine starting its spin cycle. I challenge anyone to remember the maximum spin speed beyond the third day after purchase.

I drink, do some sit-ups, lazily eye the pair of five-pound dumbbells and regret it. The bike has been sitting in the garage for too long to find an excuse that wouldn't make the entire planet laugh. I consider changing my t-shirt. I'm struck by the certainty that tomorrow's breakfast is limited to a couple of somewhat stale rusks, but I abandon the idea of running to the store. Impossible to park. Impossible to reach the checkout without being stuck behind the forward-thinking family with their apocalypse food supply, in quantities sufficient for regular time, overtime, and penalty shots.

I choose a vinyl to put on the turntable. Better said, I review about thirty before realizing I have no clear idea what I want. Italian prog, rock, hard rock, dark, fusion, and blues. I decide to ask YouTube for help.

Meanwhile, the computer has gone into standby mode, and the game is about to start.

Chapter 1, see you tomorrow.

Red on the Hill: A Winter's Tale

 

Maria spotted the red tent just hours before it started snowing. It was a late snowfall, arriving at the tail end of a dry and cold winter, so harsh that the countryside around her house had fallen ill with a jaundiced yellow. That day, like thousands before it, she had spent studying, nourishing her young mind with books.

Barely thirteen, with a body that was slow to bloom and boredom as her life companion, Maria had few reasons to venture out. Partly because she had to wait for the bus that passed only twice a day, partly because reaching the bus stop meant walking half a kilometer down a dirt road, where stones refused to compromise with shoe soles, and where she feared the neighbors' dog might come charging at her, foaming at the mouth, dragging its broken chain behind.

The village, distant and inhabited by people without imagination, was small enough to not merit a tourist's stop or careful visit. It was also so predictable and shabby that the school at its center, painted in pastel colors borrowed from sadness, was the only building in town that dared to exceed the canonical two floors, venturing into a third attic level dedicated to a dreary library deserted by almost everyone. Maria, on the contrary, borrowed many books, made herself comfortable in the armchair before the fireplace, and read until exhaustion.

During the fair season, the outdoor porch was perfect for the purpose, with its green-enameled swing that creaked like an old music box, the table with its flower-patterned oilcloth secured with windbreakers, and the wooden railing that shed flakes of dry paint at the slightest movement. Custer, her old mongrel with a tail broken in the middle and a white patch on the side of his muzzle, loved to curl up in the corner of the balcony. In that spot, the railing posts seemed sandpapered, and moreover, a dark halo on the wooden floor testified to how attached the animal was to that piece of world.

On one of those winter afternoons with the scent of snow in the air, the red tent appeared in the meadow atop the hill.

It was perfectly positioned in the center of a crown of trees, with its shorter side facing the wind and guy lines well-tensioned. The zipper at the entrance appeared half-open, with the lower flaps barely fluttering. One of the first snowflakes of the snowfall, which would last for two days from then on, settled on the slanted side. Like the millions that followed in its wake, it rolled to the ground with a barely perceptible rustle. Maria returned home somewhat worried, with Custer by her side. The dog nimbly jumped over the missing plank on the wooden bridge laid across the stream banks. She preferred to pass along the side, relying on a firm grip on the frozen handrail.

In the evening, with her mother in the kitchen, her father just arrived and his mood slightly worse than the time before, Maria alienated herself from reality and began to read, letting herself be lulled by the rocking chair in front of the fire. The news droned on with its usual rosary of bad news. Meanwhile, Moby Dick was making a fool of Captain Ahab.

A mound of snow. That's exactly how the tent appeared. After more than two days of uninterrupted snowfall and icy wind that had stiffened its contours, none of its sharp geometries could be seen anymore, and the surrounding plants had their branches bent. Maria, wearing snow boots, and Custer, with a touch of arthritis and snow tickling his belly, got close enough to imagine that the red tent could very well be someone's tomb. Maria turned back, running and watching out for the unstable bridge. She arrived home with burning feet and cheeks colored with fever-red. Lord of the Flies, brand new, was just waiting to climb onto the rocking chair with her to be initiated.

On the third day, under a sky that alternated white clouds with timid streaks of blue, the tent had sunk under the snow's weight like a cake taken out of the oven at the wrong moment. On that occasion, Custer had stayed in his bed, and the book told of a pig's head, impaled on a wooden stake and surrounded by a perpetual swarm of flies.

On the fourth day, it rained.

Maria didn't dare find another excuse to leave home, face the frozen slush up to the hill, and see what had become of the red tent. She imagined it pressed to the ground, with crumpled guy lines and the collapsed structure protruding from the canvas like a compound fracture.

The night that followed, she managed to sleep only a few minutes.

Nightmares, oppressive blankets, and too much darkness pressing against her eyelids. The clearing among the trees, with the tent at its center, appeared to her in dreams along with a rapid alternation of seasons, with a flock of crows taking turns at the feast and a procession of worms heading toward that memory of red.

Winter passed, then spring. Frodo Baggins managed to free himself of his burden, Beverly Marsh, along with the losers, completed her initiation rite, and Maria turned fourteen.

One summer morning, having passed her exams with flying colors and with mom and dad down in the village looking for a new car, she returned to the clearing. She brought Custer along, slightly limping from worsening arthritis and attached to an unprecedented leash interpreted as an irredeemable offense. The grass, tall and thick, hadn't managed to completely mask the tent's canvas that the sun had begun to fade. The curved frame tubes had proved irresistible to invasive weeds. In the middle, a newborn tree was reaching toward the sun and had dragged a flap of the tent along with it. The smell of decay in the air was quite distinct.

Lord Jim climbed his river, Guy Montag tried to set as many fires as he could, and Big Brother stared at her for a long time from the large poster on the walls.

In August, under the scorching sun and with the attic heated up, the library closed for its usual summer break, and Maria finished rocking herself under the shelter of the porch, when nothing new was happening on the western front anymore.

She ran toward the hill and arrived there panting. The tree, nourished by abundant spring rains, had grown at least a meter and a half and was dressed in red like a Christmas fir. The tubes, stakes, and now-rusted guy lines twisted in the air like a rather macabre piece of modern art. She ran back even faster and noticed that the bridge had surrendered its second rotten plank to the river. A wooden stump remained as a witness to better times gone by.

The following autumn, only a few unread books remained in the library, and middle school released her into a new world.

She forgot about the hill, the clearing, and the eager-to-grow tree that dragged along the remains of the red tent and who knows what else. She forgot to the point of no longer dreaming about anything related to that place. In her thoughts, there was some space for that curly-haired boy from class 1B and a new excitement for her breasts, which had finally decided to insistently point against her undershirt. In the morning, after breakfast, choosing matching clothes began to require a few extra minutes.

The institute's library, housed in a quiet basement, had so many books that Maria had to give herself a rule. She chose criteria that considered historical chronology and a not-too-rigorous alphabetical order. Before the holidays, she stocked up on the complete works of Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, and Goethe.

She rocked on the porch with Madame Bovary and learned the rudiments of Sentimental Education. It happened at the end of the afternoon, with an imperious thunderstorm that had made the eastern sky disappear. She learned about the life of Jeanne Le Perthuis and the cynical ambition of George Duroy, an irresistible playboy from a Paris that only appeared in vintage prints anymore.

At the beginning of September, without Custer, who was confined by arthritis to his favorite corner of the world, she found herself again before the tree. It had grown to match its siblings surrounding the clearing. The tent's canvas had turned to piglet pink and fit perfectly among the already lush branches. The frame tubes held it taut, as if a skilled and patient hand had starched and ironed a shirt collar. Among the highest leaves and just beyond the shelter of the canvas, one could glimpse a black head of hair, rather disheveled but still thick. It rested on the main trunk as if someone had arranged their afternoon nap in the shelter from the sun.

Maria hadn't come empty-handed.

She circled the trees, stamped her feet on the ground to drive away vipers, and finally sat with her back against the trunk. Enterprising ants began to take measurements of her bare ankles, and she drove them back, burying them under a light layer of soil. The tent fabric barely fluttered, like that first time at the beginning of the snowfall. Sparrows were singing, and cicadas were certainly not holding back. She felt the hard grass pierce through her flimsy summer pants and a hint of itching in her legs.

She persisted.

She pushed with her back, and the young, still tender trunk began to rock. The black hair, producing a sound of broken bones barely confused with the rustling of leaves, settled on the branch beside her.

With an emotional voice, she began reading The Catcher in the Rye.

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Clayton Mulligan - A story in America, just to make fun of yourself...

 Clayton Mulligan hated leaving things to chance.

Thanks to the early summer, the renewed miracle of blooming plants, ice cream trucks at every street corner, women in skimpy dresses strolling downtown, and America in all its splendor, he had enjoyed nature's scents while crossing the suburbs, with the window rolled down and '70s music playing on the car radio. Frank Valli and The Four Seasons had sung "December," followed by "Long Train Running" by the Doobie Brothers, the Bellamy Brothers, and Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel.

In the air, a triumph of fragrances, a wonderful mixture of wet earth, tender grass, and pollen. They decisively won over the smog and exhaust fumes that had worked throughout the cold season, laying a black blanket over the rooftops.

Clayton Mulligan, who hated leaving things to chance, had parked far away and headed to the villa through the park, hands in his pockets and a thug's gait that had stuck to his legs since he was young.

At that evening hour, he hardly met anyone.

On the bench, under two layers of filthy blankets, a sleeping homeless man announced himself with his foul odor. At the edge of the small lake, reckless lovers gave the impression of being in a hurry, tense from fear even more than excitement. From the woods, which had grown spontaneously around a stone-paved path lined with plain rows of red bricks, the yellowish lights from the windows were already visible.

He gripped the handle of the pocket knife in his pocket.

Hard, made of plastic covered with synthetic mother-of-pearl that was already starting to peel off, it kept company with his erection. It had begun the moment the details of the murders he was about to commit had taken shape in his head, when the image of blood spurting from the jugular had filled his dreams' screen with red, when the screams of terror had died out in a gurgle like a radio running out of batteries.

Clayton Mulligan was unknown to the police.

He was just the profile of a face with a big question mark at its center, a code name, photographs of locations pinned to the dusty board. He was a collection of newspaper articles, clipped and left to yellow in dossiers that had been piling up for years, one on top of another.

Clayton Mulligan was that, a sum of hypotheses, the frustration of common police officers, investigators' careers running aground in sandy shallows. Mulligan was a balaclava and a pair of latex gloves, he was the one seen only from behind, the one I don't remember, the one with all different composite sketches. Clayton Mulligan was white, black, yellow, and Eskimo. He could come from another world or be your next-door neighbor, the one who cooks pots of beans every evening. Maybe he was the virgin daughter of the cobbler, who armed herself with all her repressed energy and descended upon the city with a serial killer's temperament, or the blessing priest who stinks of that omnipresent incense smell. When Clayton Mulligan left traces, they were the wrinkles on the district attorney's furrowed brow or the nervous strokes the commissioner made with his pen on the blank page of his investigation, until tearing it.

Clayton Mulligan was uncatchable.

He had been when he had raped and killed those women on the outskirts of a provincial party, when he had robbed banks and fled with the loot before the employees had even realized they had wet their pants. He had been in a hundred other occasions, morning, afternoon, and evening, when the doors of the houses he burglarized yielded lasciviously to his tools and opened onto entire worlds to explore.

That evening, opening the gate wasn't a problem. The lock's click was barely audible, and the gate swung open without creaking.

From the house came the sound of a TV turned on, and silhouettes moved across the space behind the curtains. Hidden in the shelter of a corner and dressed in darkness, Clayton forced himself to listen.

He could hear her voices, her husband's, and a jury that was judging aspiring chefs using solemnity that would have seemed excessive even at the Nobel ceremony. He crawled under the windowsill, pressed his ear to the door, and got confirmation: two people.

The plan was simple. It called for luring the first one outside, disposing of them with a knife to the liver, dragging them behind the bushes, and taking their place when returning.

"Everything alright, dear?" she would ask, rising from the couch with a glass of Glen Grant on ice, not yet started.

And then he would rape her, not once but twice.

During the break, he would drink the Glen Grant while listening to her cry, and the second time, he would take all the time necessary, maybe undressing first and carefully placing his clothes on the back of some chair.

Things couldn't go differently. The important thing was not to leave his fingerprints impressed somewhere and the prints of his feet, a size 42 so common that investigators would surrender to panic even before beginning their useless work.

And blood.

He wanted to leave lakes of blood, attract vampires asleep for millennia, rather, but Clayton Mulligan loved seeing light bulbs sparkle on blood's homogeneous expanse, perceiving its smell and taking it home like the olfactory memory of a fine wine.

The investigators, those useless and pathetic men with ties borrowed from bad taste, would have to arm themselves with rags and buckets and overcome the swamp he would leave as a memento.

He knocked over a vase to attract attention and waited.

Inside, a light came on, reinforcing that timid luminescence that barely crossed the windows, the television went silent, and the door locked with an electric click.

With an iron clatter, the armored shutters came down, and a powerful spotlight illuminated the garden. Motion-sensor cameras framed him and followed him across the freshly mowed lawn. Even the gate closed by itself, imprisoning him inside: four walls of rough stone, garden plants arranged in precise geometry, statues, cherubs, and questionable Peynet lovers' benches. From the balcony, a drone took off, a small plastic quadcopter with a tiny camera mounted under its belly. It started circling around him like an annoying mosquito. Even when he tried to escape the merciless eye of video surveillance, Clayton was followed by that buzzing monster.

The police didn't take long to arrive. They materialized beyond the gate.

Two men got out of the car and took up positions in safety while from a helicopter, this time real, three specialists descended with ropes. The first and second targeted him with firearms, crossing their laser sights in the garden's clear air. The third approached with large steps and struck him with a taser.

"Mulligan, you're under arrest!" barked one of the men while he couldn't control his convulsions. He was spraying saliva like a field sprinkler and uttering inarticulate blasphemies from his contracted mouth.

The inspector, light blue jacket, tie of a darker shade, and impeccable charcoal gray pants, approached and looked down at him. He wore glasses with thick lenses that reflected the spotlight's beam. The wind tousled his brown hair, beating it under the storm of the blades. In one hand a dossier and in the other his smartphone. Next to him was probably his lackey, a man with as much nose as face and a hint of redness at the tip. He wore his thick blonde hair styled by a many-dollars-per-cut hand, but nothing, that unfortunate nose catalyzed all possible attention. Mulligan folded like a closed book and tried to control the pain in his belly.

"Yes, yes, yes!" And saying it, he nodded his head. The inspector was in seventh heaven. He was probably enjoying his upcoming promotion and the lay he would score that very evening bragging about his exploits with Katya, the big-breasted black woman from the anti-drug department.

The deputy made Mulligan turn with a kick. The teeth of that son of a bitch smile were no less artificial than that hairspray-heavy hairstyle.

"Now we're going to take a trip to the police station. What do you say, asshole, I bet you couldn't wait to visit one?" He bent down and let a spit fall on Mulligan's face. "So we can tell you your rights and show you the evidence..."

The pain, the daze, and that world-championship-level hangover nausea calmed down, while the helicopter abandoned the site and the drone returned to its nest like an eaglet to its mother. Mulligan waited for some saliva to lubricate his tongue, then spoke.

"And what are you accusing me of? Desecration of English lawn, skillful theft of garden gnomes?" The nausea worsened again, first from the effort, then from the kick the bleached blonde gave him in the stomach. The inspector put the phone in his pocket and looked at him like a quarter of beef. He had the light behind him creating that religious icon halo.

"Murder, rape, armed robbery, and breaking and entering with attempted murder. But don't worry. The electric chair is comfortable in our parts. If you want, you can ask to put a cushion under that flabby ass of yours and you'll see: they have such big hearts at the county jail!"

Clayton Mulligan had that fat, full laugh. When he laughed, he used his two lungs to their maximum capacity. That night it was difficult and he had to endure some pain but he didn't give up the laugh, which burst forth like a salvo of cannon fire.

"Oh yeah, inspector. And what do you have in those girly hands of yours to nail me to the electric chair, let's hear..."

The first piece of evidence fell on his teeth.

It was a ring-bound file. Mulligan, with difficulty, sat up and leafed through it.

There were incomprehensible graphs and small captions at the bottom of each one. None of it had any meaning for him. He threw the file to the ground and spat in its direction.

"I'd wipe my ass with it..."

The inspector lit a Pall Mall and offered the pack to his big-nosed colleague who refused.

"Ever heard of DNA evidence, deoxyribonucleic acid?"

"No, little shit, but I've heard of incompetent inspectors who ended up opening a truck stop..."

The second piece of evidence was similar to the first, but with more pages. You could see aerial photos of the city. Some of the streets were traced with colored lines, red or blue. Some ended with a small circle and others with a small photograph. Mulligan sent the file to join the other one.

"In my time they called them collages, and they made retarded children do them."

The inspector moved, and suddenly the cutting blade of the spotlight hit Mulligan in the center of his retinas along with a metaphorical slap. The subordinate, the deputy or the lackey with the unfortunate nose, stretched his legs to go talk to one of the raiders. He had rolled his balaclava above his head and was scratching a scar on his chin.

"These are your cell phone movements, idiot! You should have turned it off before doing all those dirty deeds. Look: this and this are the bank robberies, this is your wild evening of rape and murder. This is your last trip, the one you took tonight to come here..."

Mulligan squinted at that document and nervously leafed through it, back and forth. With his lips still numb and his hair disheveled from the electric shock, he looked like a hopeless madman faced with an impossible aptitude test.

"I don't know what you're talking about, inspector. I don't know what a cell phone is, and I don't even have any idea how it moves like you say. These are just homework bullshit for cops without talent." He stood up with great effort supporting his back and a raw cry of pain humiliated him in front of everyone. "Next time bring me some evidence, cop! I'm going to my lawyer now who will find a way to rip that badge off your tits..."

Limping, he tried to make his way and pass beyond the inspector. The moon-nosed deputy stood in front of him with his arms spread.

"You decide Mulligan, this can be the end of the line for your career or the width of your ass at the end of treatment, or the sum of both things. You decide. And now, be good, put your hands behind your back." Two Sidol-polished handcuffs sparkled jingling between his hands. Mulligan, still wearing latex gloves, planted his eyes in the cop's eyes. That look usually preceded a murder by a few seconds.

"I told you, I don't even know what DNA or cell phones are. What I know about cells carries around the idiots who let themselves get caught by you, and it surely doesn't sit in people's pockets."

The handcuffs clicked behind his back, tightening. They did so after a rough jerk.

Mulligan didn't react, not with the rifle barrel aimed at his chest. The man with the rolled-up balaclava pulled his scar into a grin.

The inspector, who had handcuffed him treacherously, walked around him and adjusted his jacket collar. With a skillful and quick move, he slipped his hand into the front pocket of his pants and pulled out a cell phone: silver Honor 7. Mulligan's eyes crossed, surprised, in the direction of the device. That hard thing next to the knife hadn't been the erection, evidently.

"Anything to say in your defense, killer?" He remained silent. If he had had the strength, he would have let himself evaporate into a cloud. At first his lips trembled in an attempt to utter a word, then they mumbled a sentence with little sense.

"But, but, then..."

The inspector dismissed the special forces men with a gesture. They left towards the flashing lights that could be glimpsed beyond the wall. The man with the enormous nose, repentant, asked for a cigarette and got it along with the zippo.

"And so you're fried like a breaded eggplant, friend, get used to it."

"But then," he looked at his hands. "My gloves to not leave fingerprints, the balaclava, the knife that I cleaned every time. The letters I sent typed on a machine..."

"We got you friend, your DNA on the victims' bodies, your phone movements, the interception of your emails, highway passages, ATM withdrawals. You showed up in the videos of half the city's cameras. You're fucked!"

Mulligan thought about the electric chair, about that burnt smell he would have time to smell in his agony, about all the nerve-wracking wait in death row. He thought about the last meal, the confessor with downcast eyes, and the green mile. When the deputy pulled out his wallet and showed him the rather worn Mastercard, he gathered himself in a kind of prayer.

"I, I..."

"You must have ended up in the wrong story. Is that what you suspect, Mulligan?"

He nodded, and a tear of anger streaked his face.

"Holy shit, yes..." He thought about the small flying object, the red rays that tore through the darkness, the cameras that had followed his movements. Even that electrical energy weapon that had made his scrotum shrink had seemed like something out of context. "I... I must have ended up in the wrong story, in the wrong era..."

When he had the courage to look the inspector in the face again, tears were flowing without restraint. The man with the big nose showed some emotion too.

"We're in 2019..."

"Not in 1971?"

The police officers looked at each other. They didn't know how to tell him.

"You ended up in the wrong story, we're sorry. One Sunday afternoon someone who was bored wrote it..."

"And who... who was it?"

The two briefly consulted, speaking in each other's ears. The deputy looked at him with watery eyes. "Roberto Capocrisiti, someone who never gets tired of writing stories and novels and everything that passes through his head..." Mulligan nodded. "In any case, he's someone who wants to complicate his life and never writes stories set in the '70s or earlier, when plots were simpler and criminals so hard to catch." Added the inspector, almost ashamed.

The deputy tried to sugar-coat the pill. "I know Mulligan, it was a low blow. At first the writer wanted to set his story in the '70s. Elephant leg pants, shirts with huge collars, and cocaine that cost an arm and a leg. He had even invented a parallel story of prostitutes with perms, cars with six thousand cubic centimeters, and cigarettes smoked in the cinema. A fascinating thing, I must say..."

"And then he stuck me with that idiotic name, Clayton Mulligan!"

"Yeah, a real mess! I'm sorry, he's like that. He changed his mind, he wanted to complicate his life with all this technology that makes it difficult to articulate a credible plot without weak points. In short, whatever you write, there's always the danger that an invention comes up that cuts the legs off your story. It went badly, Mulligan!"

A veil of sadness dropped the curtain on that contrite face. Clayton: a criminal from another time catapulted into 2024 without a shred of warning. "So the gloves to avoid leaving prints, the balaclava, and all those..."

"Precautions?" The inspector intervened. "Old stuff that doesn't hold up anymore..."

When Mulligan climbed into the van to be taken to jail, his dignity disintegrated. A thousand confetti that the wind was scattering around on the sidewalk.

A court awaited him, stern jurors, obtuse and full of prejudices. Many years in prison awaited him before a spot would open up on that chair.

For Clayton Mulligan, multiple murderer with overwhelming evidence against him, there would be no clemency.

When Silence Falls

 

Dust. At first it was matter, hard work, drowned iron, toil. It was the pleasure of gathering around the set table after washing away the sweat. It was dad, friends, neighbors, and mom, who kept busy in the kitchen convinced there was never enough for everyone. Noise. I thought I had learned. I thought my ears were trained to recognize the very essence of noise. From the north, from the south, from the sea. Sometimes they come from the sea, and if the wind feels like playing games, you notice them only when they're already upon you. Tremor. It's what takes you away from the earth, and if the earth is a floor, hell might begin under your feet, your own hell. Sun. That's one thing they haven't learned to take from us yet. True, it hides for a few hours, but when the enemy leaves, it shines again. But who is the enemy? Sometimes shadows cross the city so quickly that if you look at the sky, you risk being blinded and seeing nothing more. The whistle isn't always the same; it changes, updates itself. A free-falling bomb arrives with a sound like wingbeats, and then it depends on how big it is. The small ones, if possible, are even worse. They break through roofs, slip into alleys, roll around, and sometimes don't even explode. They wait for someone to come clear the rubble, make their way through twisted steel, challenge the flames and water that attack you simultaneously, seemingly mocking you. There are shards, pieces of brick, human fragments rendered unrecognizable. If you're lucky, you can take a shovel and dig. In the dust. If you're not lucky, there's a mechanism that triggers when you least expect it. The screams, crying, orders, and frenzy that had formed next to that pile of rubble suddenly cease. Like ants. More help arrives, they rush in like ants following the queen's orders and resume digging. They don't have time to ask who did it. That's what Western newspapers and their television stations are for. They change their version according to convenience, rattle off death counts as if discussing soccer league rankings, listen to witnesses whose makeup has just been retouched by a TV crew. To make them credible, they cover them in dust.

My child grew up like this: he learned to recognize helicopters. He can tell the model by the sound of the blades, anticipates where the strikes will fall based on flying altitude. Planes are harder. They're accomplices of the wind, they fly low, and sometimes disappear after a boom. With missiles, it's impossible. They arrive with a hiss and, if you hear it, you need to know a prayer short enough and be good at reciting it rather quickly. Missiles don't care about prayers, weddings, or funerals. They especially like to arrive when people gather to pray.

This morning I heard they were distributing medicine. You have to cross two neighborhoods and, most importantly, to navigate, you need to remember them as they were before. My child is better at this than I am. He isn't influenced by how the city was before because he's only seen that in photographs. Sometimes he's bewildered by the panorama of white roofs, domes, and endless towers, and by the ancient fortress on the hill that has stayed in place. It seems to have replaced its usual doormat with a worn-out one. He's guided by the skeleton of the traffic light at the corner, by the bare sewage pipe smoking like a big cigar, by the bicycle shop with bikes thrown on top of each other like in the pile of scrap metal in front of the foundry. They no longer have tires, and the pedal reflectors stopped shining long ago. My child navigates by the group of trees fed to the flames where I, as a young girl, had my first kiss. It tasted of cedar on a bed fragrant with red oleander blossoms. A kiss is like wine: it inherits the character of the land around it and, if good, you never forget it. My child has learned to walk fast and to make the most of the half-centimeter of sole that grows thinner each day. My child was born with the war and talks. He talks continuously and doesn't worry about being noticed. I hold his hand while we zigzag between houses reduced to landslides, and he tells me that airplanes and helicopters can't hear, and that the soldiers are so tired they no longer want to lift their rifles. He points to a wall of broken glass that looks like a punched-in set of dentures and announces we're almost there, that after the building, the one with floors laid against it like dog ears, there are medicines. And then, without warning, comes the evil whistle, the one where you must recite prayers. You must do it quickly and hope for forgiveness if you fail to pronounce some words. I feel his hand pull. I feel a first jerk that reaches up to my elbow along with a shock, and then a second even stronger one. I'm paralyzed with fear, and my fingers end up tightening on themselves. I see him slip away and run like the wind. He stumbles, gets up, and ends up taking shelter in the darkness of a garage, with the roller shutter crumpled beside the door. There's noise, there's tremor, there's dust, and there's silence. It's pure silence, coming right after the rain of rocks and bricks and objects and small flames that settle on the ground, continuing to burn. That thing bouncing down there must be a washing machine door, and a roof twists like a worm thrown into fire. Through a window, you can make out a surge of dirty clothes. I don't even try to escape the wall of dense dust that hits me like a train. It's a punch. I manage to cover my face with the scarf and feel my blood. It comes out of my nose and ears and gets messy, forming mud on my face. I don't hear crying, I don't hear anyone calling for mama. Perhaps my ears will never be capable of hearing a sound again. As my breath fills with dust, I realize I'm kneeling on a layer of pebbles. Perhaps my body will never be capable of feeling pain again. There is silence. That thing about sirens sounding a second after tragedy is nonsense. It only happens in movies, where bombs at most mess up your hair. That thing about heart-wrenching screams echoing among the rubble is nonsense. Explosions silence everyone, they undo people and strip them bare. Often there are clothes and bags and suitcases and shoes scattered around, sometimes still with feet inside them. To scream you need air, and here, now, the air has been borrowed by war. I notice my heart alive in my chest but it's mute, like a movie on a broken TV. I notice blood still flowing in my veins but it's poisoned, like a river at the end of its course. I notice that my child has remained hostage to the ruins of that building. I listen. Not a cry, not a moan: only silence. Opening your eyes, even for a second, is like letting an evil sandman throw sand in your face. I stand up. I had read about fog, its mysterious charm and the cold it brings with it. I had read about silence in the morning mist, about that search for solitude with which men at peace try to fight their ghosts. I had read about some who climb mountain peaks to gain silence and others who immerse themselves in sensory deprivation tanks. Amateurs. I had read that silence brings you closer to God. When the city takes a slap it doesn't cry: it withdraws, bows its head, and seeks refuge in silence. That morning, somewhere, a colonel with a hot cup of coffee by his side must have pointed his finger at a map and given the order to fire, in silence. He didn't even speak: he just tapped his fingertip on that intersection of streets and made it clear with a look that he would stay in front of the monitor to see what happens. I take a few steps, delirious in the dense white surrounding me, and feel my cry getting stuck in my throat. I'm a walking plaster statue. I wish I could hear calling, screaming, or crying. I wish I could hear a child's voice begging for help. That missile has laid a tombstone on my life. I push, scratch with my nails, try to move it, but a blindness that accompanies silence leads me to slow, inexorable resignation. But I'm standing. The dust slowly settles and lays yet another white shroud on the miserable remains of this city. I can make out the building with floors laid like dog ears and that other one, which before had only broken windows and now kneels to war, surrendering unconditionally. The roller shutter that was in front of the garage where my child took refuge has flown to the opposite side of the street. It's leaning against the luthier's shop door, and a broken pipe is making it drunk with rusty water. The silence is broken. If you concentrate, you can perceive the sound of iron under the jet. Nothing like the sound of violins that the dear old luthier knew how to build so well, but still music. The building where my child took refuge is still intact. Looking at it carefully, it has perhaps lost a couple of balconies, and a third has remained clinging to the wall like a troubled mountain climber. The black eye of the garage is there waiting for me. It smells of rot and the humid draft carries out the smell of death. I approach with stones under my shoes trying to make their way through the soles. When I finally manage to look inside, I see the ceiling full of holes and electrical cables everywhere, hanging like vines. It drips. On the opposite side, you can make out a crack that crosses the wall diagonally. It lets through a blade of light that draws something on the floor resembling children's scribbles. When they were alive. When they went to school. When they ran after the ball in the street. What I hear is related to friends' voices, in those summer nights that started late and were never cold. They called you through the noise of music at parties, and voices came filtered through thick, substantial cotton wool. Those were the times of butterflies in your stomach, of stolen kisses, of nights spent watching the stars and skies where planes flew without bombs, and we, young girls, had fun guessing where they would go. Those were the times when we looked at the sea, without thinking that the gray color of a ship was synonymous with death. Those were the times when dust was lifted from furniture, noise brought joy, tremor was what took your legs when the most handsome boy in school smiled at you. Those were the times when silence was made out of respect, for the dead or for tired people. What I hear comes from the darkness, cold and dense at the back of the room. They are footsteps, running in a puddle and skillfully avoiding the wounds in the floor. They are echoes, they are breaths, they are tired structures creaking under the weight of a frightened child. The word "mama," I swear to you, is among all the most beautiful to hear.

A Summer's Remembrance...

 

It was the summer of '77, I wasn't even eleven years old and my mother was lecturing me to stay away from everything related to football passion, including bar fights and of course stadiums. She was probably right and had foreseen well, but the desire to kick the ball had manifested itself anyway, with the same punctuality with which pimples would arrive a few years later and then, as Battiato used to say, those stupid senseless infatuations.

It was immediately clear that my forty kilos of skin and bones would never end up in the top scorers' hall of fame, nor would we ever make trips beyond those fifty-three kilometers that separated my town from the provincial capital. But we definitely played football, and when there was no way to put together a couple of teams with at least four players per side, like Brazil-Italy, Brazil-France or Brazil-Real Madrid, we were content to sweat in those fresh laundered shirts with just a few of us, to decree the end of new jeans and to condemn tennis shoes to certain death. Among the most recurring performances - because these were true Actor's Studio interpretations - there was the one where you assumed the identity of a certain, specific football champion, idol of the crowds and unattainable trading card to exchange at school after exhausting negotiations, and you promised - declaring it in advance like calling your shot in a game of pool - to head the ball or volley it or bicycle kick it, the ball that someone would commit to kick roughly in your direction. And if you succeeded, if that scissor kick really came off well or if that header after a five-meter run-up hit the top corner of the goalpost without a net, you had the right to run across the field, celebrate in the manner of the champion you had declared to be, jump until exhaustion and simultaneously improvise the commentary, complete with jubilation, redundant terms and radio interference. If you were good, but really good, you could even imitate the screaming crowd that accompanied the commentator's joy.

They were rare but they happened, those occasions when we remained just two, me and my friend. My friend, I remember, had put the ball on the patch of yellowed grass from where crosses usually started, had looked around and stretched his legs and sought the right concentration after testing the air currents. Before kicking, however, before risking my low esteem for the poor precision of the pass or worse, before running the risk of hitting the thorny bush and prematurely ending the rubber ball's career, he had looked at me worried. He was a precise guy, and I swear, even now he's a real stickler. In that game you couldn't improvise, approximation was banned and lack of seriousness, we were certain, would bring bad luck at least until mid-August.

"Well?" "Well what?" I had asked. "Well, who are you going to be?"

He had every right to ask. I had already played as Causio, Rivera, and Chiarugi. Boninsegna had hit the post at the beginning of the afternoon and Chinaglia, well, I had never liked him. I had a soft spot for Roberto Dinamite, the Brazilian who would launch missiles and torpedoes but I didn't feel up to it, not with my sparrow legs and that shirt that reached my knees.

"Benetti," I had answered.

Not that I understood football. I was interested and felt those itches and knew that soon I would fall in love with it definitively but for the moment, for that summer, I was content to listen to friends' discussions, to follow on Sundays, getting a bit bored, the second half of the match which was the bread to nourish oneself with football for the whole week. And then there remained the marbles and newspaper headlines read for free while dying of boredom in the long blue afternoons. But Benetti had stuck with me, for that face like a bad-tempered Viking, for the pockmarked skin as if a swarm of meteorites had bombarded him without hurting him. For the broad shoulders and for that shark smile that was seen once a year if you were lucky. My friend's objection had been ready:

"But Benetti is a midfielder. If you must, be Zaccarelli."

But my little fan's heart, the one that would soon become an adult heart full of passion, beat for that other side, that of the bad guys/thieves and the fans who were all illiterate and Agnelli family suck-ups and...

"No. I won't be Zaccarelli!"

"Then," he had suggested and already knew he wouldn't be surprised by all my ignorance, "then be Paolo Rossi..."

Caught off guard and fearing a joke, I had asked who this person was, with such a mundane name as to be unoriginal even for a Bruno Bozzetto strip. Paolo Rossi, such a common name, ordinary, predictable. Rossi, I remembered well because the teacher had given us a lesson, was the most common surname along with Bianchi and then Verdi because things were like that, had always been like that. Our country was divided into opposing factions since time immemorial and so what was so special about this Paolo Rossi? My friend, who as I've already told you was a very precise type and I guarantee you that even now... had briefed me. Few but very useful information.

"He's an opportunist..." had been the answer.

"Like... like Cruijff?"

"No way! Cruijff is technical, with golden feet. One who takes you for a ride for half an hour and then, when your tongue is hanging down to your chin, still dribbles past the goalkeeper and puts it in. Like Claudio Sala, the poet of goals."

My verdict had been issued without even examining the evidence - "Then Paolo Rossi is useless!"

He was disappointed. Too little football knowledge chewed and still those tactical gaps that I would have to fill as soon as possible. "Then be Bettega," he had told me, shrugging his shoulders resignedly and now I don't remember anymore. I don't remember if I had managed a header even vaguely similar to those of cabeza blanca or if, simply, I had sent the ball to deflate among the thorns. What I do remember, however, is that from then on I had become interested in that Paolo Rossi: biography, statistics, technical characteristics and then everything else. I had followed the international cups and friendly matches. Sport Sera had become my favorite show and then Domenica Sportiva, but only if I didn't have a test at school the next day. The following summer, just in time for the World Cup, I was already a passionate fan, a full-fledged and dangerous delinquent, carried away by arms from bars on the coast where they showed the first matches in color. My father, embarrassed, would apologize to the patrons for my, let's say, exuberant character and would accompany me to a second bar to watch the second half. He doesn't even know but Argentina - Italy, the one from the colonels' World Cup, broadcast on TV in the middle of the night and where Bettega had hit the posts to the point of headbutting them in desperation, I had eavesdropped from my little room.

So, that's how Paolo Rossi had entered my life and along with him that wonder of a game that is football.

Today Paolo Rossi has left it and I don't know if you, I don't know if among those of my age, among those who spent summers afraid that the ball would end up in the bushes, among those who scraped their knees on the asphalt and who when the shot was high - and the goal was made with jackets - would understand each other with a glance between one team and the other, if there is someone who feels the void that I feel.

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Why Do We Write?

 

One writes, among other things, because you have so much inside and need to make space, because your characters desperately need air, because there are worlds you've seen that others haven't noticed.

One writes because that story you caught just with the corner of your eye deserves a sequel, or because you're sitting on a train, and that glimpse of landscape, smudged by the window glass, has connected a couple of rather distant synapses in your mind.

One writes because everyone has already written that story, but in your opinion, that's not how they should have written it, because the world is full of stories just waiting for someone to make them presentable, and because, for once, you want to be the one pulling the strings of destiny. One writes because you want to begin where another would have ended, or because you want to end where another would have begun.

One writes because nobody cares about that thing, but you went down there and saw it up close. What a surprise that commotion was, the dust, the shouts, and that smell of healthy sweat, like a cloud of overexcited kids chasing after a ball.

One writes, I think, because there are many interesting people out there who never existed, like Madame Bovary, Captain Ahab, or Thérèse Raquin. Years go by, and you keep hearing about Renzo and Lucia, José Arcadio Buendía, or Dona Flor with her two husbands. There must be a parallel dimension where they've become immortal, and they don't even age anymore, not beyond that mischievous pen stroke that had drawn a wrinkle on their forehead, a gigantic nose, or a wooden leg. I wonder how Lieutenant Drogo, that Montag, or that Jean-Baptiste Grenouille are doing?

Carol Gerber. I, for instance, would like to meet Carol Gerber, but also Frannie Goldsmith or Beverly Marsh, for that matter. It wouldn't be bad if some of my characters could send me news, bring them my greetings.

One writes because one envies those who get rich by writing. Sure, they use languages different from ours, bouncing from one continent to another, and eventually materializing into images, comics, and songs.

One writes because it's impossible to do without it, and because every time someone starts reading your book or begins your story, the lights come back on in those places and on those characters. The latter wake up, emerge from the suspended animation that had forced them to sleep, stretch out, and begin to recompose the story that concerns them. Each time slightly different, they dress in the clothes that the reader sees fit for them and change their face a little, their height, and the tone of their voice, then they look around and no longer recognize the place, flooded by that ray of sunshine that wasn't there last time, or by that cold breeze that makes you want to cover up.

That's why one writes, because the seed of the world you've buried will germinate each time with a slightly different plant, and the miracle will be performed anew.