The sea, only the sea. Sea all around. Do you see that. You are sitting on a small square stone in the middle of the sea. A perfect block with a smooth surface, but you’re on top. It hurts, you almost can’t resist and yet you stay there. You look at that body of water and it seems perfect, still, dense, almost alien. Infinity would like to suggest a comforting thought, a promise, but you are already elsewhere. To be exact, when you were twelve years old and you spent your time hating your mother for the way she talked to you, the way she breathed, for bringing you into the world, and at that particular moment, for denying you , with all the malice she was capable of, those purple shoes you wanted so much. “That’s unfortunate,” he said. “There is bad luck in the theater! Not in seventh grade!” Scream, scream as loud as you can. Your classmates wear shoes that match their hair color and you have no choice. You have to have purple shoes because, as that bastard Giorgio says, purple is what red hair is for. saltine crackers for Nutella: made to go together.
«Life is very much like a play, my daughter, you better get over it. Violet will never enter this house.”
You hear his voice, he tortures you and itches you violently. Scratch, scratch harder, in that spot below the ankle. Where blood is about to flow. Good. Past.
Infinitely, from a sharp rock in the middle of a foreign sea, she continues to send you messages of harmony and generosity, but your mother, as always happens, destroys everything. Those damn purple shoes are probably to blame if you’ve wasted your only chance to assume a social role of any importance during your teenage years and your entire life.
You lose yourself in angry thoughts that make your cheeks red and splotchy as you see the sea move and then rise, higher, higher. You are not afraid. You stand there and watch as you always do as the water in the tub rises and rises until you turn off the faucet.
However, this water changes color. Now it’s petrol green, the same green as the pool of the ’84 Games without Borders, famous for the sensational scandal of the Polish judge, the girlfriend of the Azerbaijan captain, who, we later learned, denied her the victory in order to avenge a sinister and never-acknowledged episode that took place the night before in hotel. You were seven years old, but you never forgot the tears of the Azerbaijan captain. Your mother claimed that purple also brought bad luck on that occasion. Azerbaijan, purple uniform.
You feel tears in your eyes and you are sure that if you don’t stop them immediately, you will cry forever.
You try in vain to move from the single tip of the rock that you are sitting on and from which you cannot move. You look up and see a strange fish in the distance. It’s big, very big. Maybe a shark. You see the fin go in and out of the oil-stained alien sea and big human arms swim in style. It feels normal to you, like you see it all the time.
He gets closer and closer, you try to see his face. Oh yes, it does look like a fish, but it looks incredibly like your cousin Livio when he was sixteen. Your cousin loved him because he played bass in a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band and was a carbon copy of Anthony Kiedis. He looked at you in a way that kept you awake at night. Livio didn’t have the face of a fish, did he?
It will make you laugh and you laugh so hard you pee. At that moment, the piece of rock you are sitting on starts to crumble and the sea waves get higher and higher. They are big and menacing. A big, hungry mouth that wants to eat you.
You fall off the bed. The floor is cold and your knee hurts. You open your eyes, still full of sleep, and see yourself lying in front of you, sane.
He jerks his legs in front of you, trembles as if he is afraid and cries in his sleep with his eyes closed. Wake up, sleep, you really don’t think those alien blue-green waves want to swallow you? Don’t worry, you won’t die, nobody will eat you. It won’t happen tonight, I’m here. She will make you see her like this. But she doesn’t hear you and keeps crying. You would do anything to go back into the dream and see what is happening, but your body is paralyzed, there is nothing you can do for her. You decide to come closer and stroke her hair. You wake up, sooner or later you have to do it, you think. But as soon as you touch the lock resting on the right side of your face, it disappears, dissolves, is no longer there.
You look around for help. There is a bed with a kerosene green sheet, do you like the color. On the right side of the bed is a man you don’t know. He is naked and fast asleep, snoring, his hand on his chest. You look very tired and you know that tiredness because it’s yours.
You sit on the other side of the bed and look at him. What are you doing here? You don’t know this room, it’s not your home. The man seems to be tortured now, like when you were lying on the ground a moment ago. He often says “no” and “sorry”. The more he talks, the more you feel like you know him.
Hi, I’m Giulio.
Hi, I’m sorry but it’s a bad day.
Of course I understand. I don’t want to bother you, I was already looking at you and I was surprised how you got lost in a cup of coffee.
Oh yes? How did I get lost?
You were sad.
What kind of psychologist are you?
No, I’m just observing. I like to people watch. And many tell me that I can understand it.
Come on. And what would you understand about me?
I think you have a fixed idea. Something that torments you.
And who doesn’t have one?
Is it true. But I think yours belong in the category of nagging thoughts, the ones you can’t get rid of.
You are good. But you are wrong. It is not a thought, but a person.
Then things get complicated.
And my mother. We’ve always had a complicated relationship. He is going to visit me. We haven’t seen each other in a year and I’m nervous about it. But why am I talking to you about this?
Because, as I told you, I understand people.
You’re pretty.
You too.
Don’t come with me tonight.
I can’t, I have to go home. My mother will arrive early tomorrow morning.
Stay.
I can’t.
You stay instead, I decide.
You don’t understand. You don’t have time to understand. You’re on the ground in no time. You feel something warm dripping from your hair. Metallic scent. The taste of your blood. You feel it in your mouth, in your nose. The petrol green wave is all inside you and your cousin Livio drifts away into the endless alien sea. You are now wearing purple shoes. You can’t see them, but you know they’re there. Your mother doesn’t say anything anymore. You don’t remember his voice anymore.
You turn around and see how you are lying on your stomach again and your eyes are not closed like before, they are open, fixed on one point. What a ridiculous expression, you think.
In those eyes you are no longer there. The look disappeared with you. It knows you’re there, but it doesn’t do anything. He is sleeping. He could have helped you, he could have done it before it was too late, but he didn’t think about it. After all, that’s how it went. One night and gone, a blow to the head and gone. Who knows how many more times this will happen, or maybe you’re the first, but it doesn’t matter.
You both had purple shoes, tea on the bed and the one on the floor. You like yourself. Red and purple look divine together. That bitch Giorgio never made a mistake with a match.
The phone rings. It’s her, you know it’s her. It came and you are not there. Sin. You would be happy to show her the shoes because in the end you made the decision, not her. The last farewell. She would tell you that the story of luck running away from the violet was true and you would tell her as always that it never actually happened to you.
Hi Mom. Hello sea, you were the most beautiful thing in the world to me.
Valeria Colizzi