Stories and News

Stories and News No. 1140 To you. To you, who are out there, or even here, next to me. Above all to you, while you are still living the age of justified fragility and candor nurtured by heart. Nonetheless, to all of you who have somehow been lucky enough to keep all that, regardless of the illusion called flowing time. Forgive us. Really, forgive us all. We, the adults. We, the older ones. We, and among us, more than ever those who often make choices for themselves, stating them as popular desire. We apologize if we have grown up and aged by cultivating fear more than anything else. We are afraid, yes. We are incalculably afraid of everything. Even of you, especially you. We are afraid, that is, often the certainty, that you were much more courageous than us, rather than hope, as it would be our moral and generational obligation. We are afraid of what we see as different, when instead your eyes have already cataloged as human. We are much afraid of what we ignore, th...

In your image By Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher "Good morning, I'm Tom, how can I help you?" "Hi, yes, I have got a problem with the profile picture." "I see. Account holder?" "Avatar." "Not the nickname, I mean the real name." "Well, yes, it's Avatar." "Are you making fun of me?" "What do you mean? I’m not having fun at all." Click. "Hi, I'm John, how can I help you?" "Good morning to you, yes, look, I've called before too, there's something wrong with my profile picture." ... "John? Are you still there?" "The name, sir, I need your real name." "Avatar." "The real one, sir, I have no time to waste." "Why? Are you dying?" Click. "Hi, I'm Fred, how can I help you?" "Hi, yes. Listen, Fred, I have got a faulty profile picture." ... "Fred?" "I'm here...

Stories and News No. 1139 Forgive us. Really, forgive us all. It was not our intention to encroach on your time. Invading your horizon. Becoming a story in yours without warning, writing unexpected pages in the human tale. The fact is that we are born by chance somewhere and often we die in the wrong place for the most different reasons. Because of illness , many experts support that. Whether it might come from the body itself or the mind, it will be explained with a minimum of foundation only by the most shrewd explorers of unfortunate creatures. A rather greedy epidemic, in the case that concerns us personally, since more than one hundred forty of us have traveled the last mile of the different journey, finding the same end. 140 death stranding whales on New Zealand However, is there someone who needs the truth behind so badly? Important question, as well as what lies under the meaning of this story. Some hypothesize instead that the cause was only a fatal navigation...

Stories and News No. 1138 Let's also write this as a story. Because, in my humble opinion, this is yet another metaphor of the time we are living. Once upon a time Silvia Romano and Massimo Gramellini , a famous journalist of one of the most important Italian newspaper . Take him for instance, just for that. I do not know the first one and I learned of her only after the tragic news about her abduction. Well, this should be the due incipit for the vast majority of people, when we are dealing about persons we never met, even if they are on the great media’s spot. I do not know the person and I learned of her only after the news , I repeat. Of course, among those who want to express an opinion, if they need to. What we know for sure is very little: we know that the kidnapping took place in Chakama, in southern Kenya. The girl was there as a volunteer of Africa Milele , an Italian non-profit organization, and she has long been involved in projects in the area. There is st...

Deportation story By Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher A nightmare. This is a nightmare, but I am awake. It would be wonderful if I was still asleep; I would give anything to find myself in one of those stories, where I can open my eyes and everything comes back as before. I still see the scene again as if it were now, again, and again. I am at home, quiet, confident that the door and the walls will protect me. Because there is danger out there, this is what they taught me, and that's what I share every day with my peers. Evil lurks in the folds of what I ignore and that is different from me, this is the only news to be spread in every corner of the brain as in every plot of the heart. Suddenly I hear screams beyond the door, they call my name without mentioning it, but I know it's me, I know it's me who their talking about, who they are looking for. Not the third, nor even the second, but the door yields to the first blow, showing me instantly how foolish I ...

Stories and News No. 1137 I was and I am a whale. Despite time, despite you, dis-harmonic variable in the natural equation. I was alive yesterday, but today I am dead. Nothing strange in the passage, except the result of this underrated journey that only a few still believe priceless, whatever the traveler might be. Read also as the extremely negligible life of the considered minor species . In short, animals . Yet there was a time when I was feared like the undisputed protagonist of the greatest novel of the whole literature, as well as queen of the oceans. Tell me what you're afraid of, I'll know what your soul really is worth , it must be written on the bottom of the latter. Almost 6Kg (13lbs) of plastic were found in the belly of a whale stranded in eastern Indonesia But only those who have got the courage to explore the abyss or the misfortune of sinking on the path can decipher the message. It will tell you that the current men have chosen to be afraid onl...

Stories and News No. 1136 Yes, all right, fine. We already know, really, we know everything. Especially where white hair begins to exceed time to lose with the already said and listened. Nonetheless, even in every other eventuality, we should know it. Because it does not take a genius to understand that people like Donald Trump – men with a vulgarly rigged face, from the a past and a ridiculous present, from the total lack of authority as credibility, there have already been in the history. We will see others of that kind, unfortunately. We know it, we do, but then we exchange the human memory for the hard disk, where you can copy and paste over the new stuff to convince yourself that you have updated, and something, sometimes the essential gifts, gets confused. So, taking advantage of these vulnerable ranges of moral perplexity, someone who is blatantly wrong manages to catch the helm of a country. However, it does not take a magniloquent culture to know that guys like Ma...

The dream of the diverse child By Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher Once upon a time there was a child. A child who was different. Not by birth, I have to be clear. We come to the world unique, there is on the packaging of the soul, but it is one of those special warnings, written so small that to read them you must have your eyes really open. He became diverse as soon as he opened the door of his life to his neighbors. I am talking about superficial differences, as most of those that determine the boundaries of what should never have limits. Read as well as the neglected intelligence. Nonetheless, they were there, every day among the first ones of the small protagonist of this story, as increasingly thick and marked lines to surround the reflected image. "A spell," thought the child, "this is a bad magic with much evil intentions, able to imprison me in a mirror of the fraudster kind, which gives you only two dimensions, at most three, instead of infinite....

Stories and News No. 1135 Once upon a time a human being . A seventy years old creature, in these times . An old and tired person. Not for the age itself. We cannot let the numbers to judge, because words and stories, art and more or less virtuous politics failed in this. It is the story of a wrong life. A living tragedy, further grown up in its horrible semblance of normality. In 1948 the first birthday, while in the background, down there, somewhere, possibly beyond the sea, the picture sadly appears, ever too much like itself. You can see a furrow, a line, a slip of beating flesh. In short, for the most, a strip named Gaza . In the image, to outline the essence of the painting, you might get the plots whose sign insists in the same stretch with dull stubbornness, to confirm the saying that hell is repetition more than anything else: the rockets of Hamas , let they be cursed, if they were really launched, or not, the trail that they draw on the celestial vault in t...

Stories and News No. 1134 Terrorism or not terrorism . This is the modern question , no to be or not. Whether it is reasonable in the mind to undoubtedly accept the approximate sentences in the news, or to go deep inside the facts between lots of lies and by finding end them. I could go on, sinning for the umpteenth time of naive trust in the audience. That is, the respectful people who become public. I wish it was like that. We would have an infinitely perfect scenario before us, if we might be able to solve everything with a stage play, whose revealing force could be concentrated in the main monologue. A solo of vibrating words that, like the wandering theater company in the Hamlet , could be able to scare the impostor king, forcing him to stop the staging. Then I would go ahead, as I used to. Terrorism or not terrorism . A man enters a bar dressed in black, with a cap of the same color on his head . Is he a terrorist? No, maybe yes, but the dress is not enough to de...

Nadine and us By Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher Many often used to say that we understand the true value of things only when we lose them. A kind of thought, like many others, who are lost in the crowded heap of acclaimed banalities. Yet, history tells and frequently recalls that, in the ingenuity of the recurrent painting, new colors are hidden, giving an original sense to the past. Perhaps, this is the only way to write other stories. As the day when the girl with a skin as complex as her origins was invited by the literature professor to read her composition before the class. A sort a poem around the given topic, a goodbye letter and a heartfelt prayer, all in one page, writing without thinking, with a naked heart and trembling hands. Maybe something made of incautious words, considering her audience, far from ready to accept such gifts, at least on paper. Despite that, someone should start to incise the latter with something sadly honest. Before the teacher's exh...

Stories and News No. 1133 Let’s go forward . Come on , do not stop , move on . This is, as they say, the path of men. To be precise, the Leaders with the capital first letter in the name, as in pride. More than ever in the immediate interest and, above all, investable in the market of the most disenchanted concreteness. Because the enchantment is banned, even if it was just a pretext to show the selfish deception hidden behind the billboard eating the sky. Anyway, don’t stop , insists to shout the sovereign marketing. Go fast , run without looking back at what is left behind, moving foot and arrogance forward. As a consequence, in the subliminal implication of the deafening admonition, there is also written to continue to impose on the world the foundations of our chaotic life. Without offering ears and conscience to the natural warning, even if the now rotten soap bubble explodes with a painful roar. These are tragic coincidences that are acceptable in the final calculatio...

Stories and News No. 1132 Forget. Forget with me what, most of the time, you do not see. Inside the whole human design. So, try to forget, that is, put aside for a moment the almost one hundred thousand migrants and refugees arrived in Europe from the sea this year. Instead, focus every attention on the two thousand and nine hundred eighty-seven lives that have disappeared in the waves. One thousand and nine hundred, plus eighty-seven. Read as well as almost two thousand . Be brave, now, stay with me on the frame. Let's assume they can fit into one, single monitor. Almost twice a thousand human beings, between women and children, boys and men, more or less old. Think about it. They lost their lives to come to you, how certain people could be strange, nowadays. Wait, do not leave. We do not need to say anything, you know? Relax, we are not inside a horror movie, because they are shadows and ghosts that can no longer harm anybody, if ever they could do it. Actuall...

The wonderful weapons of the little ones By Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher A lightning, blackout, everything away, somewhere, up there, where everything works, and that everything is needed to live. A lightning, another one, down there, where the darkness is home and, of course, it's not scary at all. "Dad..." "Yes?" "I had a nightmare." "Tell me, I'll listen to you." "No, it's a short one, only two or three seconds." "I'm interested anyway, go." "I told you, Daddy, it was all very fast. At the beginning of the dream I was in a beautiful house, full of chandeliers and colors, and there was music, you were dancing, and mom was still here, with us, as if the bombs..." "And then?" "Then, just a moment later, the dream began to crumble." "What do you mean?" "As if I was reading a beautiful book and an evil magic broke the pages in small pieces." ...