The bus arrived on time thankfully, so began my desperate journey home, three hours of curves terrible and unpleasant sensations. During the trip immediately lost interest in the landscape, in fact I found myself trapped in a small space, packed with back and head on a piece of hard plastic, reduced mobility to a minimum and that the cold m'aggrediva time every square inch of skin. Drafts of icy air entered into their mad rush right on the base of the neck, and I was obliged to cover me as if I was inside a freezer to be human. If a bloodthirsty dictator had used that trip to compel confession to his political enemies, would certainly have made very good progress. In short, if occasionally someone off of cigarettes on my body, I would enter into a part that fits me perfectly.
Throughout the time of curves and counter to reflect on what I finally found. I lived the first few weeks intensively university, and I did not have neither the time nor the desire, of deepening the scope of my impressions. From time to time phone calls to friends who are still in high school, and they told me with enthusiasm the usual snippets of village life. Each time a simulated vague surprise to learn vivacchiavano the devilry of the characters in the country, although some years were the same on time. The bee background of "goppai" Ernesto and the miniskirt thighs of the Assumption, the fierce fight at the bar of the old and that Franco overthrew Zuddas grabbing the bulls by the horns, Olindo drunkard saved from the bites of Dr. Mitra and that cagava him. However, and despite the stories that danced between fantasy and dementia, I felt nostalgia for my small country, how he feels the lack of a dumb friend that, after death, will yearn for the total idiocy. I could not recognize the reasons for that feeling, I did not have a clear understanding that I could say, 'Look, this is to miss. " In fact, it was a mix of presentations, fears and memories unconsciously mixed in my conscience numb and confused.
Of course ... of course I felt nostalgia for some features atmospheres, which were created only at specific times of the year. Through the last decade of October, weeks in which the school work had not yet entered their most acute phase, allowing for peaceful settlement of the raft absolute idleness. One afternoon was spent in the most absolute slowness, we had no worries or fears that contaminate our oasis of serenity. So we met usually during the early afternoon, and we thought of going into the woods to wait for the time spent with the friendly company of bad beer, but had the good taste of freedom. The cigarettes were being smoked in the utmost secrecy, and if someone took a bit 'of marijuana then notavi people who could not stop laughing, others concentrated in hopelessly obscure reasons, and others who began to vomit, quite unable to face with courage had its enigmatic psyche. However, these small "accidents" does not distract us from our primary tasks. The weather was almost always generous and the air was full of a special hold. Did not have to do anything if you do not detoxify the waste the summer for those intoxicated with autumn. In the village street and the bar is constantly conversing many people, people you knew and you knew perfectly immutable characters as the mountains that rise on the country, men and women who are no exceptions. You could meet the inflexible teacher in elementary or your devout catechist, the manager of the football team regularly drunk, a cousin pastor who vehemently insisted to invite a "cup" of wine, simply beautiful girl of all, friends who orchestrated torture psyche and physical for the usual wretched of the school ...
As I reflected on these and other situations I found myself before the hills I knew to perfection, an image indelibly etched in my consciousness of the film. A slight feeling of malaise, a kind of vice in the stomach, tried to suggest what I already knew, like the nerd of the class, to avoid leaving a sound lesson, he suggested to fellow bullies only the simplest answer ...
Looking back and reflecting on my inhibitions, that could be considered something that bordered on the idea of \u200b\u200b"happiness" happiness in this life if you can speak. Today I should at least admit it to myself, I should get away from the prohibitions that kept me mentally to share the feelings and accept even more immediate. In fact I was surprised to discover those high houses and narrow streets, which unraveled in the valley as a sinuous snake stone. When the bus crossed slowly the first houses in the suburbs, as an elementary school student I put both hands on the window to observe the structures that ran before me like images of a silent film. Obviously nothing had yet been changed, but I watched every single item with genuine interest as a tourist arrived foiled by mistake among those wooded slopes of Ogliastra. The Church, the great square where the festivities were celebrated civil and religious, the dark bars uncle Alfonso , with the usual defense of the living statues placed at its entrance, the garden mangy and his melancholy benches, behind which countless Sometimes we tried to hide from their parents, who really were not looking for us, but with their patrols exorcised the ghosts served up by the news of the moment ...
came down from the bus surrounded by a backdrop of nostalgia, but well glad to be back on the same road on which I had walked hundreds of times, usually in the company of friends or in solitude surrounded by the evening. In those few feet that separated me from home walked absorbed, absorbed in memories that stimulate neurons sore from the chaotic urban existence. I knew every single place to perfection, there was not a square inch that does not awaken memories in me that the time could not erase, because it carved on a matter far more robust and powerful than any existing marble.
As soon as I arrived at the door before I knocked and waited the arrival of my mother because my father rarely fulfilled a similar task. Had passed away just two months, but they seemed to have passed the centuries. When my mother appeared behind the door we looked great, smiling, and we parted with a hug. My father came from his office to shake my hand, and wonder if Cagliari was still the same city that had once known. For some minutes I answered the questions of my parents outlining my new life, then ran into my room to lie down in dear bed, staring at the ceiling m'aveva protected since I was a child.
Vincent D'Ascanio, an unpublished short story excerpt from 2010.
