The library
Events
It was a long time life didn’t dare, or even attempt, to transform some drops into a rushing stream, or even a river. It’s a fact that, sometimes, a drop slips from his fate and finishes in a dry place. That calls rapidly other drops, before the sun realises the fact.
Being cautious this sip of unpredictable existence would be strong enough to open its way to the sea. There, different kind of fishes, and sea turtles, even corals start growing. You just being really patient to see all those things happen. The same patience you can read in the face of a delayed dinosaur, called turtle, when she’s trying to win the force of the current.
So, it’s there in the end, at the estuary of our river, before meeting new and strange new travel companions. It’s there where you’ll find your destiny.
A destiny
Now, lulled by the movement of the train, M. dreams about being inside the belly of an enormous desert snake. Then she looks at me, a thoughtful smile for her strange fate. That only drop is now a story and this is for sure the last train of the day. No one else can follow her, now she’s not in danger anymore.
This is the last stop, outside is darker and darker every second, the train
dakadakadakadakdadakakakakakakaakakssssss
stops with his famous coughing.
Places
There are some places, far away from everything, behind the magic altars build to obstruct the conscience. Here you can find the most strange and solitary people, but also small cars in which some time-less characters listen to the radio with their windows down.
Over the walls, somewhere, carefree voices and thin hands speak without any filters. You can find people like that around train stations, in great parks, and in the concerts where people wear oversized t-shirts and jeans. Those mushrooms find their perfect habitat here, where they can proliferate.
The shadow
Among those bubble of conscience, you can now spot an oblique shadow, a shape cut roughly by the last sun of the day and the first lights of the streetlamps. The shadow run and stretch touching the hairs of a girl peacefully drawing in her block a church three hundred years old.
The shadow continues, getting now squared, now stretching again. It passes over some walls and then in a street without shadows. Or lights. She gets down into the centre of Earth, in the mysterious belly that patiently host us long time. Outside a sign says
Tavern- Meat
And again the illusion of reality. New shadows, now coloured in yellow and red ready to redefine the boundaries as well as expectations. You read tavern but you actually think
Wine
Then you read meat and what you really get is
Fireplace, wood, warm
Everything that in a moment like this here seems to be just a mirage. Unless, then, suddenly would become real. The hands push hard on the door which separate this shadow from wine, fire, wood and warm against the cold of the evening.
A cold that taking the sun by surprise, advance again in his kingdom, the night. A vortex of light is enough to make this eyes blind for a while, accustomed to stay in the dark, with no sleep whatsoever in days.
Food, at least
To be followed has pro and co. The pro are always shining in the smiles of the optimistic people, even though hunger and thirst don’t help much here.
Few steps inside and four muscled arms get interested on the new coming. No one sees me, the watch. If they’d spotted me, they would see I’m still 3 hours behind. It’s not my fault, as you can guess. I’m not able to change myself the time. And I’m correct, in my own way, in another longitude.
The interesting shadow
Ignore me, if you want, you peasants, but I dare you to ignore this fascinating woman, here. She’s tall, with short hair, a thin wrist with soft hands. No, she’s written all over the face she’s not from here. She’s a stranger, and here they don’t see strangers so often.
The way she walks in is confident, and confident are the eyes looking over her. Four, as the arms, four eyes ready not to miss a single step of this thin figure now asking
Could I have please a glass of water and a sandwich? Oh, and a spirit, any spirit.
Which sandwich?
Anything, I’m starving
The man on the other side of the counter has one of those faces you forget immediately. Anonymous, he could easily work as a spy or model for haemorrhoids medicine. Doesn’t seem to be nice, neither a criminal and you’ll never see him watching you straight in the face for sure. If not probably if you’d look at the mirror. For sure, this woman keeping me in her wrist doesn’t care, anyway.
Here we go, your water and the sandwich
And the spirit?
Oh, I’m sorry, here we are. Our best vodka, Miss
Mrs
Mrs
Thanks
Can I offer you this one, madame?
The voice comes from one of the four arms sipping a beer at the counter. The strongest arms.
And he stress the phrase on the last word. As he wanted to account in a second all his life and his temper, too. As he wanted to say that he was married once, and exactly as her he doesn’t have rings any more,and be a Miss or Mrs isn’t such an obstacle for him.
She’s a pretty woman and he has two big arms and a yellowish coffee- cigarette- coffee smile, with a nice scent from the supermarket where he works. The real alpha- male.
The thin lips move a bit in an arch that seems to be a short smile, then she open them to gulp the water and vodka in rapid succession. Got rid of the cold and the thirst, now she’s just hungry. But suddenly this isn’t the right place to eat anymore.
Hey, where are you going? You didn’t even tell me your name!
This steps stop in front of the door. Outside the wind sings in B- flat and a door shouts somewhere.
Thanks for the vodka, but the least thing I want is to occupy your arm with a new tattoo with my name. Goodbye
The door shouts, leaving behind two open mouths and a stoic one. The bartender, even the last photogenetic, finds more interesting to rub the bottom of a glass than caring about this human fights. Inside the pocket, the bloody reason of all this rush.
Escaping
That soul, that rough voice which is following her everywhere, is guiding her. Escape, outbreak, runaround, she learned all the possible synonymous of the word in the last weeks. No bed is lucky enough to feel the warm body of the doctor enough to get warm itself. The chain is unbroken, and is made of steps, trains, cars, rooms and strange men.
This is the place she’s searching, the
Public Library- Office Advertisement and Entertainment- School of Life
She entered just for the library, but she cannot avoid a look to those children following bored a professor. In the blackboard she can read
Taxations are for losers- How to avoid them
It’s incredible how the State, instead of modelling responsible citizens, teaches them how to beat the laws. In a perfect world they’d be taught how to pay the taxes, instead. These students, however, decided to follow another path, more convenient.
Not everyone is ready to follow such subjects as “how to survive with State grants” or “robbery”. If the Governor opened this school, back then, for sure he had his own reasons. Without no one going against the rules, he probably thought, the rules itself could be forgotten and with them whom is in charge to control their respect.
The library
Here we come, here’s the library. The hand takes the wallet, the card got older from the years of university. The watch on the wall says it’s 7.30, I say it’s 10.30. Luckily everyone follows the ugly big watch on the wall, so M. will have a chance to enter and read the book she’s interested in. Seated at the tables professors and doctorates ready to go home. In the section esoanimaterism she finally finds the books she needs.
Antianimatology of the part of the real world
Taxonomy and regulations of spirit and matters
How to free a soul from the controls of life?
In the last one, the expert look of M. reads:
When a soul is cut from its adoptive body (cfr. Chapter III Reactions and Aura) passes as a non material and non temporal substance in the form of waves auto- reflecting. In more practical terms, it detaches from the subject without losing the real consistency and the essence. A new theory sees the soul as a victim annexes to a new body.
Interesting. So it explains this voice always speaking to us, trapped in the small finger. Now we need to rush a bit, find something about the well of soul. It seems impossible, but:
(…) where the mountains once a city now lays, where the trees don’t follow the sun, but that dark sea called soul.
That’s all? That’s something every child in the world knows. Everyone knows that phrase, but when they try to understand the real meaning, they don’t really find one. It seems a lullaby, that makes you shiver, the Prison of Souls where all evils will perish. No one really believes on it, but no one really stop to believe on it. Soul, soul, that’s not the right moment to disappear.
Take the red book from the shelf
The soul finally spoke. Actually, on the top of the shelf there’s a small book, its cover chewed by insects, by the time or maybe by someone with long big nails.
M. Gets on her toes and touch the volume. It’s a common book, with the title
How to make a story
What would be useful in this book about what we’re searching for? M. starts reading, trying to find any secret passage, a message between lines. Nothing seems to be interesting.
When you write a story, it’s important a moment of pathos, from the Greek word (…)
Nothing, nothing important to help her, not even a small hint. Then, the chapter entitled
Writing is not for everyone. If you don’t know anyone in the field, go for horse- riding instead.
A sound
Tup
A small piece of paper drops on the ground, yellowish by the time, made of a thick hard paper, an expensive one.
In the place which once was a mountain and now it’s a city, where the trees don’t follow the sun, but that dark mystery called, soul instead. You’re almost there. Now watch at your right side.
M., even if the whole situation seems just a dream, watches at her right side and for the first time notices an image and a note handwritten on it.
Madame, please, it’s closing time!
The rough voice of the librarian shouts. He has a family and a football match to watch. He’s not payed for losing a minute more in this non- sense place full of paper rectangles.
Y- yes. Just give me a minute, please
The figure of the librarian goes away, mumbling something inaudible. The note on the wall is a girl’s writing, someone who wrote fast on top of a picture of a forest.
Piantonia, where the roots face the sun. For helicopter excursions please call the rectangle- number at the bottom
After leaving the book in its place, she decide to get closer to the picture. Plantonia, the Nation of Plants. The place in which no human being can step on. But how that book knew what… the yellow paper, it’s still on her hands. Now it’s telling something else:
Enter where you know, walk from the East. There you’ll find the Well of Souls
Then, the imagine disappears and a note big as a scream appears
BURN ME!
A shadow, again
So M. escapes from the big wooden mouths of the library and goes in the street. In the purse’s pocket she finds a lighter, old friend from the time in which she was a smoker. Slowly, put fire on the side of the paper and feels it whistling and making smoke.
When the last piece of paper gets to the ground, it seems to her that a note appears
Thank you
But it’s already ashes, wind, fog wrapping the valley. But now she knows where to go. And thinking about her destiny she gets lost in the night, eating ravenous a sandwich red as blood.
— And the next week… Treason! —
This story will be published once per week only, with all rights reserved for the story and its translations by Flyingstories.org and in the person of Daniele Frau.
All the graphics are handmade and designed with different techniques by Gabriele Manca, DMQ productions, who reserves all rights.
All English articles published in Souls (alive) proofread by Elisabeth Corcoran
