Nicola Rocca - Two Drops Of Water

Martelli Funeral Directors. Two shop windows and a preparation room.

Thinking about it still brings a smile to his face.

So much time has passed. It seems like only yesterday, but now his entire life has flown by.

The weight pressing down on his lungs increases. Aldo may never have experienced his own death, but it is all too familiar to him. He can sense it.

Now that his time has come, he's not afraid. Life has been kind; he can have no complaints. He has never lacked for money or affection.

His thoughts turn to Mina, whom he married before either of them had even turned twenty. Gradually, images of their children come into his mind. Then the grandchildren.

Their faces seem so real he can’t help but smile. Such a beautiful family.

As his vision begins to blur from a lack of oxygen, another memory pops into his head. He thinks of the little white coffin and the secret he has kept for over thirty years.

It was so long ago now, but he can remember it as if it were yesterday.

He still can’t explain why he did it. Could have been greed; could have been a million and one other things.

He deceived an entire town.

He opens his mouth wide in an attempt to steal one final breath, and his eyes relax and fall open.

Just a split second more of suffering, and the secret would go with him to his grave.

A mia volta mi fido del mondo

non ti dico le botte che prendo

Non c'è modo di starsene fuori

da ciò che lo rende tremendo e stupendo…

( La linea sottile [The Fine Line] - Luciano Ligabue)

CHAPTER 1

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.02

So you're not married and you don’t have a boyfriend?

03/02/2016

SadChantal 20.02

Nope. Neither of the above.

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.03

How come? Must be your choice, right? There can't be a lack of interest. I’ve seen your photo...you're a stunning girl.

03/02/2016

SadChantal 20.04

Girl? I’m not sure I still qualify as a girl at 33 :-(

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.04

You may be 33 but you look about 25. And you're still a girl at 25, trust me!

03/02/2016

SadChantal 20.05

If you say so...

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.05

So you still haven’t answered my question. How come a GIRL as hot as you isn’t married or in a relationship?

03/02/2016

SadChantal 20.06

Ermmm....next question please!

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.06

Ooops...have I touched a nerve?

03/02/2016

SadChantal 20.06

I’ll say... And what about you? Married?

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.07

That’s touched a nerve right here too… :-(

03/02/2016

SadChantal 20.07

Wow. Love is definitely NOT in the air around here!

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.07

You're not wrong, SadChantal. Is that why you’re sad? Did your last relationship go tits up?

03/02/2016

SadChantal 20.08

Maybe...But love’s not the only reason. What about you anyway? What’s the deal with your name?

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.09

Just paying a little tribute to my 2 favourite directors: Alfred Hitchcock and Dario Argento.

OK, so apart from love, what's making you sad, gorgeous?

03/02/2016

SadChantal 20.09

I’m just going through a rough time...I’d rather not talk about it.

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.10

Understood. We’ll talk about something else shall we?

03/02/2016

SadChantal 20.10

:-)

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.10

Hmmm...we need something a bit more fun and light-hearted...

03/02/2016

SadChantal 20.11

Anything would be more fun and light-hearted than the last year of my life.

Go on, fire away...

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.12

It might not be the most fun and light-hearted topic for most people,

but it is for me: What do you do? For work, I mean.

Chantal sat motionless in front of her PC. It was unbelievable how this guy had managed to hit her where it hurt. He’d started with family, then moved on to love, and finally, in an attempt to talk about something more “fun and light-hearted”, he'd delivered the coup de grace .

Work had been a sore point for a while now.

She began to tap away at the keyboard, and her words appeared on the screen.

“Fuck off,” she muttered, burying her head in her hands.

She deleted what she had just typed, reducing the message window to nothing but a flashing cursor.

The thirty-three-going-on-twenty-five-year-old girl got up from her swivel chair and headed into the kitchen.

“Where the fuck are they?” she asked herself, scanning the table she hadn’t cleared from earlier.

Nothing. They weren’t there.

She cast her eyes over to the shelf by the sink.

They weren’t there either.

She puffed out her cheeks in frustration and headed for the living room hoping for better luck. She raised a finger to her mouth and began to bite nervously on her nail. Her eyes were darting around the room: the glass coffee table, the shelving unit on the wall, the old writing desk...

“There you are!”

She walked over to the antique piece of furniture and grabbed the packet of Philip Morris. She took a cigarette from the pack and lit it, hoping that the nicotine would somehow inspire her to create a cover story that could mask what she had really, shamefully, done for a living.

By the time she had returned to the bedroom, the cigarette was already half smoked, and a couple of pieces of ash fell to the tiled floor.

“Dammit!” she admonished her own carelessness.

She was about to go back in the kitchen to fetch an ashtray, and a damp sponge to clean up the fallen ash, when her PC emitted a familiar ping .

She peered at the screen. There were four new messages.

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.16

Hello?

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.17

Don’t tell me I’ve touched another nerve with work!

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.20

You still there?

03/02/2016

AlfreDario77 20.23

What’s going on?

Don’t tell me I’ve touched another nerve with work!

Well, kind of.

You still there?

If truth be told, she didn’t know if she was still there or not. It was probably about a year ago that she started not really being there. And it had got worse ever since as she was beset by one problem after another, slamming into her like a high-speed train.

What’s going on?

She had no clue what was going on, only that she’d lost her mind in some corner of this godforsaken earth. No, there was definitely no happy ending to the last year of her life.

She took another drag and realised the cigarette had burned down to the filter.

“Fuck’s sake!”

She flicked the butt out of the window and turned back to the screen. He could wait, for now.

She moved the cursor up and to the right, and clicked on the X. The chat window disappeared to be replaced by a giant winking emoji.

Her computer had been her virtual world for days, but she switched it off and returned to the real world.

CHAPTER 2

Until this time last year, her life had been completely different.

Mamma and Papà had raised her lovingly. When she left high school, she had wanted to start working so she could contribute to the household income, but her parents had insisted she apply to university.

“Choose whatever course you like,” her father had said, more serious than she had ever seen him. “We’ll find a way of paying your boarding costs.”

She chose Economics, and she already knew enough about that particular subject to know that she didn’t want to be a burden on her parents for years to come. She'd found herself a part-time job at Lilly's Snack Bar so she could at least contribute to some of her uni-related expenses: train fares, books, lunches away from home.