We publish the text that the writer will read on Tuesday 19 July in connection with the Milanese review. The son asked him for help with a school assignment: to invent an island, but then he did it himself. And he came up with an idea that takes your breath away
THE OTHERS
Gi, vero,
yesterday there was this thing to do with my son,
follow him in the exercise of the island
– had to conceive an island,
give it a name, draw it, inhabit it,
creating connections, threats, conflicts,
tell his story, invent his future,
a complex thing, it seemed,
for a nine-year-old boy,
and I told him not to worry,
because I would have worked on it with him,
but I forgot about it.
I mean, he didn’t ask me and I didn’t,
and obviously that’s not how it works,
not that fathers look after their children
only if their children ask them,
but yesterday it went like this,
and I only realize it now,
in the ten dead minutes we spend in the car,
every morning, go to the bins
– which in Rome are mainly used for this,
to approach us with the car in the second row, q
hen children are accompanied to school
– between the entrance of his sister who is in middle school
and that of elementary school
– same large building,
imposing, peeling, gaping,
with numerous unusable parts, rotten fixtures,
and yet beautiful,
where Giorgio Caproni taught
– and in short, I realize that I miss yesterday
just because he asks me if I want to see his island.
Here, to the bins.
Ten minutes before going to school.
Take out a folded sheet of paper like this,
and opens it, and the drawing is already very beautiful,
because he colored it all,
and above all it colored the sea,
that rightly, like any island,
of its island represents the most important part.
in the shape of a dog, his island
– because he loves dogs, he really worships them,
and when he was younger,
if someone asked him what he wanted to do
when he grew up, the dog answered
– and it’s called Isola degli Ossi,
and full of names and puns
with the word dog
– is threatened by a dog-aura,
it has its active vul-dogs, and monsters
Can-zilla e King Dog
-, and his capital a romantic thought to his mother,
that is, the name of the city and the Festival
where she is working,
— Cannes.
beautiful, its island,
and I think if I remembered to help him
I just could have done worse,
which does not justify my omission
but at least it empties it of consequences.
But not everything,
indeed, not yet nothing,
because among the threats to his island
there is a pirate ship approaching
and the pirate has nothing to do with the island
because it comes from afar,
and in fact his name has nothing to do with dogs:
and here my son takes my breath away,
at eight in the morning
approached to the bins,
a few minutes before entering school,
he takes my breath away because he asks me for advice
on the name to give to this pirate.
Arturo called him, he says,
the pirate Arturo,
because it sounded good to him,
but then he changed his mind, and he wants to know what I think about the change,
and takes my breath away, because he explains to me
that the pirate is not a pirate at all
it is the dogs that live on the island who believe it to be so
and they call it that,
but in the story that he decided for his island,
the pirate Arturo, who is not a pirate,
and his name is no longer Arturo,
lands on the island and lets himself be smelled,
and it does no harm to dogs
and the dogs do no harm to him
and become friends,
and they will live together on the island,
and for this a more suitable name came to mind,
but changing a name is not a trivial matter,
and since he has a father writer,
who must necessarily understand names,
he asks me what I think of this new name
– and this new name to take my breath away:
The Others, he tells me.
At five past eight in the morning.
With capital letters, he tells me.
In the car.
Just like it was a name, he tells me.
Waiting to enter school.
The pirate The Others, he tells me.
Approach the bins.
What do you think about it?.
July 14, 2022 (change July 14, 2022 | 21:15)
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