HESPERUS

Evening has already fallen on that little village at the foot of the mountain, the silence is broken by the roar of the engine of a family car coming from the nearby town where the early morning earthquake had caused damage and collapses enough to force a complete evacuation of its inhabitants; the town next to the mountain, on the other hand, had suffered almost no damage, other than a few tiles falling from the roofs and the collapse of some old barns in the surrounding countryside. The car, having arrived on the outskirts of the town, stops in a small dip in the road; the vehicle is occupied by five people, on the front seats are seated a man of about sixty with a hard and authoritarian appearance who, from his features, seems of Middle Eastern origin, and a beautiful woman in her fifties with raven hair and a classic Mediterranean appearance who sits silent with her eyes lowered, almost fearful, as if she were afraid just to breathe; certainly they are the parents of the three boys who sit behind them; one is a handsome, very exuberant young man, showing great self-confidence, aged around twenty, the other is a beautiful, bubbly, chatty girl aged around eighteen, between them the youngest, a boy of around sixteen years reserved and silent, very similar to his mother. The father gets out of the car and opens the trunk from which he takes out some blankets, a box of drinks and a few packets of biscuits which he then distributes to the family members; once this frugal dinner is over, they take the blankets and settle down as best they can so they can spend the night. In the morning at dawn they are woken up by someone knocking on the window, the father opens the door and finds himself in front of a handsome young man dressed simply and asks him a little abruptly:

«Who are you and what do you want?».

«My name is Paolo, we saw that you stopped here for the night and we wondered if you needed anything, why did you stop to sleep in the car? If you arrived in the village in the square there is a small, very welcoming guesthouse."

«We come from the city which is practically unusable due to the earthquake, our house collapsed almost completely and we managed to save ourselves with a few things and this car because we were in the garage preparing for the holidays, we had just started loading the car started to shake, we left immediately and miraculously saved ourselves before everything collapsed; we have nothing else."

«Yes, we felt the earthquake too but we didn't think that the city was so damaged since we didn't suffer any significant damage; now what do you want to do, do you have somewhere to go?”.

.................................................. ...

 

Complete story in the book DREAMS OF SUMMER NIGHTS and on audiobook published by ALETTI EDITORE and starring Alessando Quasimodo, soon available on the main e-stores (ISBN 9788859191834)

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Preface to the audiobook by                                                                              
Alessandro Quasimodo                                                                                 

(only in Italian)