Stories and News

New shoes By Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher "Steve..." the girl calls him after turning around, no longer finding her boyfriend next to her. ”Come here, it's raining..." The young man - telling the truth no longer so, is motionless on the sidewalk, a step away from the specially tended porch on the glittering window of a jewelry store. "Do you hear me?" Mary insists, wearing her jacket reluctantly, as many betrayed that afternoon by a deceptive illusion of spring. ”Come here, you stupid. What are you doing, still there?” Still, yes it is. Steve is still, with his bowed head, indifferent to the raindrops that gradually crowd around his neck, decided to slide down his back and lay the foundations for a sturdy cold. "What are you staring at?" Asks the worried girlfriend. Steve raises his head and looks her, drawing a complex smile on his face. "Are you laughing?" No, he seems to reply. I remember. I remember those comrade...

She’s too beautiful By Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher A story on the contrary in quite another universe, where in an overturned world the imperfect reigns, to the detriment of the exceptions... "Catherine, stop crying, come on..." "No, Mom, I can’t..." "Yes, you can, clean your nose and wash your face..." The girl, a step away from eighteen, is sitting on the floor in the bathroom. She raises her head and shows red eyes and mascara’s tears on her face. So, she pulls up and obeys her mother. After drying her face, she starts to stare at the image reflected in the mirror. "It's better, right?" "No, Mom, it's no better at all... I have been hours here trying lots of makeups for tomorrow's party, after spending months studying those damned Youtube video tutorials. I need some special effects... or maybe something magical..." "You're too hard on yourself, Catherine, you have to appreciate yourself more, y...

Stories and News No. 939 For the 90th round, Time magazine has chosen the Person of the Year , portraying him in the famous cover, which had major influence, for better or for worse, on 2016’s events. It’s the turn of the new president of the United States, Donald Trump . However, now, at this very moment, is it really Trump’s time? It’s Trump’s Time, of course it is. Nevertheless, time - with a small letter, is not only a magazine to read, wrapping each disillusioned hope the next day. Time is not today picture on the cover, nor yesterday and the day before viral images. What images, you ask? That’s exactly what I mean. The definition of time is no small matter, and I don’t want to face the universal question, right now. For sure, it's not Donald Trump’s, as it was not Obama’s for eight years. It was not even Hitler’s and Gandhi’s. Similarly it is not mine, writing here, nor yours reading, as much as I am grateful to you for having got time for me. A missing word ...

Stories and News No. 929 I read that a city in New Zealand has decided to build an underpass to facilitate the march of the penguins. The private gallery is designed to help these migrant creatures, allowing them to pass unmolested. Wow. Double wow. Indeed, only a half, and nothing exceptional. Don’t spread the news that I exaggerate. I, Mahuta Atairangikaahu , and all my family, we are well known for stubborn containment of measures. Just for the record, it’s enough to say that the day my cruel and authoritarian grandmother was hit by her last infarction, just before she declared “it was just a tremor due to the changing weather”. Soon after, my brother-in-law, as well the unpleasant and severe elder’s son in law, to explain his sudden attack of a convulsive laughter used very similar words: “Excuse me, just a tremor, due to the changing weather.” And go on with other guffaws. Wow, you know, we Atairangikaahu are like that, we minimize by vocation: it’s nothing , don’t wo...

Stories and News No. 914 I read that thanks to commitment of the " Meeting of Civilizations " Association and the fundamental support of Third Pillar - Italian and Mediterranean " Rising from destruction " Foundation various works damaged in Iraq and Syria have been faithfully recreated using modern technology and put on display at the Colosseum in Rome. They say that things are ever getting worse. The usual pessimistic. Before was better , the future is dark and other depressions on the horizon, I know them. Fortunately, the truth is that in the peaceful world they look ahead, keeping a careful memory of what is left behind. What behind was shattered. Forever. Well, we cannot say it anymore. Meeting of civilizations , what a beautiful sentence, I write it anywhere. In my head, in the essential records of a wounded memory and on the few usable pages of a soul tattered by a destiny that I would call sadistic. Well, I cannot say it anymore. Reborn f...

Stories and News No. 912 This year the Nobel Chemistry Prize went to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, University of Strasbourg, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart, Northwestern University, and Bernard L. Feringa, University of Groningen for their work with molecular dimensions machines. What a beautiful day this is. In the small world… It took a while, but now they know it too. Well, the good news fly faster upward than the opposite. Unluckily vice versa is also true. Anyway, there is a nano-party down there, where the nano-humans live. Not to be confused with the dwarves , that are constrained by a megalomaniacal script to play the role of missed tall . In the nano-towns , however, there are no such metrics abuses. They are all equal in the common nano-life , not to be confused with dwarfism , and so on. I realize that such a wave of nano-joy in the existence of the nano-living is not a viral news. It is out of the Mass media’s eyes. In fact, it would take such a concentration of nano-l...

Stories and News No. 864 Lost in the Arizona mountains, Ann Rodgers and his dog survived for nine days drinking pond water and feeding on plants. The rescue came thanks to HELP made up on the ground with sticks and stones by the seventy-year old woman. HELP, one of several forms of the saving words… A id, let’s say it, let’s start with the very first one, so the list is on the way, as the story. On the other hand, at least alphabetically it enjoys precedence, for its deafening spread too. Well beyond our ability of hearing, otherwise, a grateful silence would go on a moment after. B reak, give us a break is what too many murmur, do not scream, because the strength is low, but that does not mean they are not trying to cross the wall. Please, give us a break with adding nationality, probable origins or even the color of the skin of the alleged criminal, pointed cleverly used on the front pages of so-called important media. C ourage, courage is what the rejected stories ask the...

Stories and News No. 816 Tomorrow there will be a demonstration in Rome. I read that "the goal is to strongly condemn the recent massacre in Paris, expressing the deepest feeling of closeness to the French people." Not in my name. If today I were a believer, I would think that. Perhaps I would whisper it. Maybe I would even say. Certainly I will exclaim so if I believed in any faith, before those who use the latter to spread distrust, their god to see him biting the others, his own symbol to crucify the presumed opponent. Not in my name. I would shout out loud that listening to those who, like vultures with beaks always pointed to the most defenseless people on earth, do not fail to tear the formidable monster designed by the lords of the news. And never satisfied, they are ready to snap any prey that might in some way be dragged in. In the pot. Not in my name. I might even record it on my forehead and all those who regularly are assimilated into the soothi...

Stories and News No. 807 Greetings, my best greetings to you. There, somewhere. Sharing hope in a crowded room of lives and needs. By tapping into what you never had, for yourself. And that is the true miracle, rather than magical tears rained down from nowhere. Sincere greetings, really. Amazons and warriors from the white coat, with that indomitable scalpel and courageous stethoscopes saving from the flames the life that survived. The gift of not required peace. Best wishes to you, lonely woman. The same for you, lonely man. That despite the world is running in the opposite direction, you turn your back to the finish line and get down, down there. Where slow existences are breathing with difficulty. Where there will not be anything to win. And an honorable defeat will be the best that might happen. Yet you are there. Yet you even back there the following year. Many wishes, all I can, to you. Eyes and ears that lend themselves to the cries remained on the table. ...

Stories and News No. 786 In order to stimulate public discussion on the issue of climate change photographer Kerstin Langenberger posted a shot stolen on Svalbard islands, in the Arctic Ocean, North Pole, which has become viral ... What can I say? A white bear . A hungry and suffering white bear. A skinny white bear in trouble ... Well, let’s begin to clean the icebergs , as we polar bears used to say. What can I say? For your information I am a lady . Proudly female. And regarding the reasons for my anything but curvy profile, are you convinced that truth is precisely what you are interested of? Is the real answer what you ask for? I imagine a lot of eyes, now. Watching. Always in the eye that has already seen, indeed, because how many of you might claim to have looked closely at a white bear? What can I say? Pairs of eyes , instead of just eyes , should be more exact, with all my heartfelt consideration for the blind in one eye. Pairs of eyes that I imagine admiri...

Stories and News No. 784 It seems that in a cave near Johannesburg, South Africa, a group of scientists have found more than 1,500 remains of bones of individuals belonging to a new species. Here is an exclusive press release by the team: Dear people, We made the discovery of the century. What am I saying? More than that, let’s exaggerate this time because the occasion requires it. This is the greatest exploit of all time, no jokes. We found a new species. It seems to be one of us, but we cannot be so sure. Let's just say that none of us would risk a single fragment of the fingertip, but we're not here to play, after all. The moment is solemn, gosh. Because this new species, which may be one of us but wait to say it, is really new. Looking at the fossils and after a careful spectrographic analysis of the longitudinal enzymes through cuneiform catheters - it is useless explain this, we are scientists, not you, we understand a lot of the little guy. Yes, you got...

Stories and News No. 758 I read that, since we have 14 survivors and 40 bodies recovered, there are still 400 people missing in the Yangtze River in Hubei province, China. 400 people . Four hundred . I read in the 'little paragraph' on the bottom left. Kept space for the terrible sinking of the cruise ship. I read, I read even more. And, perhaps, I understand... Once upon a time there was a news. A news as many. Really, nothing extraordinary. Poor her, poor them. Living between those words. Maybe forever. Because their history is all there, for those who are too much hurry to look down. Read as well as ‘where the valuable life’s scraps end up’. The news as many, nothing exceptional, poor her, poor them, concerned a handful of human beings’ fate. A handful, yes. Yes, human beings. Because the miniscule lives, although grouped by love or bad luck, are squeezable in the palm of your hand without any effort. They are small. Or, perhaps, your hand is too lar...

Stories and News No. 753 Right now, in Colombia, the rescuers are trying to save seventeen miners who were trapped in a flooded gold mine. It seems to have no more than three days… Once upon a time there was a school. A normal school, far from favored. By fate as the administrator of the so-called public affairs. In the normal school there was a equally ordinary class. On the other hand, normal or excellence it is, where there is a class here comes a teacher and them. The sons. Of mothers, of course. Of life in general, every color and profile, able to survive the darkened reins of his majesty the prevailing moral. Of course, fathers’ sons. "What job does your dad?" The teacher asked. "Our father fills the others pot," the children of the waiters boldly answered. "Our father, however, erects bed and shelter to the lives of others", the children of construction workers declared with enthusiasm. "Our father is a hunter of possible fut...

Stories and News No. 746 Rishi Khanal, 27, was rescued . The man remained 82 hours under the rubble of a hotel in Kathmandu, due to the earthquake that recently hit Nepal. He is still alive because he resisted. And because someone went to save it. Well, the story is all there. In the middle... Once upon a time there was the earthquake victims. No, do not immediately jump to the logical conclusion. Imagine. Imagine with me the overwhelmed and buried lives by more or less noisy shocks. You choose the preferred scale. That seismologists of human destiny may define as well the severity of the quake. The result does not change and the picture remains intact. Tiny breathing and late hearts, behind the last turn, but still in the running. Still determined to overcome it, that blessed breakthrough. Come up with me at the turn of the simple metaphor and watch them where usually the living eye sees things. You do not see anything, don’t you? Dust, confused vapors of dust. A...

Stories and News No. 742 I read that Matheryn Naovaratpong, a two years old Thai girl child, was declared dead in January because of an incurable brain tumor and now is the youngest person in history to be Cryogenically frozen. With the hope that upon awakening, mankind has discovered not only a way to bring her back to life, but also care to heal her. What a big shot, betting hope on mankind... Once upon a time there was a girl. A dreamer girl. One of those stubborn. With masochistic dedication to gamble everything on the ending surprise. A twist, the virtuosity of the script or just a clumsy deus ex machina, the crucial turning point. The unexpected turn, that becomes grimace on the face of cynical pro grumblers. Wishing to claim: ”Improbable stories and plays were fine. The outbreaks of possibilities really survived the utopia’s storm. The one that may convince you that all was just a utopia. So we were right. Then...” Craving speech, this, meaningful only in the rea...

Stories and News No. 734 Saturday, 28 March 2015 at 8.30 pm local time will be the eighth edition of Earth Hour , an event created by WWF to raise public awareness on the urgent issue of climate change. 2015 will be remembered for a theft. A theft of words... Once upon a time there was the perfect robbery. That is what earth told the moon the day after, when the latter asked about the hour of darkness , that would have shed light up on the end . Inevitable, but at least postponed. Tell me more, the queen of the night requested. I'm curious. The earth hesitated, fueling suspense in the stars too, the usual abusive spectators. I'll tell you a lot more, she said. I'll tell you everything. That is all the story. I was there and so them . The most arrogant creatures among the terrestrials, the true aliens, the real unwelcome customers. The only illegal citizens that, often, should be expelled. The human beings . Countdown, open curtain and... dark. No total...