Stories and News

Stories and News No. 950 Why Remembrance Day , you say? I'll tell you, my dear, you'll see that it will be easy, much simpler than it seems. First of all, you know what memory is? Yes, I know you do, even better than me, I guess, but I’d like to explain it the same. It cannot hurt me, I think. So, the memory is like a box , a large and elastic one, which can grow anytime. How much? Well, it depends on you, indeed, on us. It depends also on how many things we put in. Which things? Those we all consider important, which made us feel strong emotions or think strong thoughts , for example. What are the strong thoughts? They are those that once come into your head, they are so bulky and loud. Then you find so hard to get rid of, but because you care and you don’t want to forget entirely them... ... we put them in the box , very good, kids Now let’s go back to the point. What is the day we are talking about? You know, time passes, so months and years, you look a...

Stories and News No. 949 The US president has made his first TV interview. He said that torture absolutely works and his country should fight fire with fire ... Once upon a time there was a game. One of those role-playing competitions, so fashionable nowadays. It always had so many names and, as much as every game, there are those who are having fun, those who are just watching and those who aren’t enjoy at all. It’s a role playing, I just told this, but I have not added that you need cards . The main one has also various names, but now it's called Trump , a kind of joker . Then there are the victims cards , the accomplices cards , the passive cards and the resistant ones. The number of players are unlimited and that is not a good thing, because the product is popular, but not so educational, let's face it. It might be better doing something else, but this is what it is, as they said. Returning to the content of the package, in addition to the cards there is t...

Stories and News No. 948 Pateh Sabally , 22-years old man from Gambia, committed suicide by drowning in the Grand Canal in Venice. I read that, according Italian law, no one was forced to save him. Four life rings is the price you pay. For the show ... Watch this movie, even if you've already seen, I know. We all have did it, and here we are again. Maybe we didn’t understand before. Maybe it would go better with the language subtitles. That hit where the heart doesn’t hurt, because now no longer beats. That's right, this is a story that survives death itself. Because, inside a sort of circle of hell built in a TV network, there is someone who desperately needs to tell it. And someone else with a perverse habit to listen with locked ears and memory. Watch the scene, despite being old, but always trendy. There is the sea, as always. There's the ship, the travelers and him. The one who dies at the end and the beginning, during too. And even earlier, i...

Stories and News No. 947 Eight people, including two children, were rescued from the hotel buried by an avalanche last Wednesday. "Finding these people gives us further hope into other survivors," said an employee of the Civil Protection. Survivors... We look at them with affection and understanding. We are sorry for them but at the same time we rejoice in their breath, the embrace with the saviors, the return home, to us. We're somewhere and we look and read about them. Thinking of those who didn’t make it and we count. We do with those left behind, the weight of the pain, the vacuum filled by the avalanche, yes. But on the other side of fate there are them. The survivors. Those who know, those who really have seen all, those who were there, no simple words for that. Those that we should listen first and then. The lucky ones after all. Do we want to talk about luck, then? Really? So, certainly with much less right to speak, the list of those born wi...

Stories and News No. 946 Fabiano Antoniani, aka DJ Fabo , after a serious car accident remained blind and quadriplegic. 39 years old, despite many cures, he decided to end his trip here. "Mr. President of the Republic, my name is Fabo and I would be free to die." With these words – here the video - along with the girlfriend he asked the President of Italy Republic to urge the politicians to make a decision regarding the end of life’s law . Those who know me best may tell you that I have a relationship with death based on absolute panic, but here we’re not speaking of myself, us, all of you and especially you who read. Now we are in the inviolable reign of one and only one... Let me die. These are three words. Indeed, they are many things. It’s the beginning of a story, this one, and might be the conclusion of an existence with a sad outcome, that’s likely, but a dignified one, loved by those who still love and never stop, more than ever accepted by the only peop...

Story published on the collection: Italian short stories, a dual language book : True short stories collection to understand contemporary Italy (2017)

Stories and News No. 944 Ladies and gentlemen, Here comes the snow, icy gift from the sky. Merely the latter, for those who see everything and who are content to fill the eyes with natural divinities. No, it’s not snowing right now. Not yet, anyway. No news to bait clicks and leave behind irritation and disappointment. It’s just a story of expectation and fear. Yes, it's a classic among the most anxious preludes. Snow is this too. A dream to hold in your hands, to create other snowy dreams. At the same time, at worst, it’s death sleeping for the homeless. If you think about it, it’s a banal paradox among the most common ones. What is paradise for some, probably few, it’s the inverse for all the others. The two halves of a wrong world, but only if you look it from the true side. And if you try to put things right, here you find yourself marching in the wrong direction. No, it's not easy. Snow is not a plausible event where it rarely is. As well as the arrival o...

Stories and News No. 943 On the tops of the kingdom with complicated power and unspeakable weapons, boundless instruments and blinding lights, but mostly shadows, a sovereign succeeds another. Obama leaves what Trump takes . Yes we can , the former said at the very beginning, or we might say ‘ It could work ’ as Young Frankenstein screams in the movie parody by the late Gene Wilder. And we did it , his farewell recites. What the latter will do is yet to be seen. Nevertheless, when the kings change, the most surprising reactions can be observed between the lives of the most unexpected creatures... "It's useless, Dad," says the little ant, redundant clarification, but useful to the task. "What are you talking about?" asks the big ant, sort of misleading oxymoron, if you have fussiness on size matters. "I’m talking about these leaves, dad, which we insist in filling the provisions room with. And please, don’t start with that Cicada ’s story, I...