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Titolo: Re: Non è mica colpa della Rai?

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FOLLACCHIO
Light autobiographical note: “Is writing a fashion phenomenon or is it
fashion the best way to read the person? Riccardomustodario a past as
a stylist in a present as an artist”.
Follacchio published on newsgroup.it.arti.scrivere had participated to
the literary competition Premio Sirene 2001 3piDante before being
revisited in 2004 was written trepidante.
Preface
The scentist…they say in my town: “Scen and then tist”… I’ve checked
in the dictionary and it needs an “i”… when you say writing in honour
of the character: “Follacchio” gentle, fond, a bundler; I say that to
myself while editing the preface as it was a dedication, seven years
after having written the novel. And I will always think of him as the
archetype of sweetness, every time, hiding from myself, I’ll swallow a
piece of cake I shouldn’t eat because of the cholesterol, which,
according to studies of the last decade, can be defeated only through
light.
Follacchio
1994
A chapter only
Follacchio the scientist, in his expeditious pragmatism, was sure that
his own figure, in exhaustion of supplies, was due to forced choice of
celibacy or, to be more precise, when the sun would cease to irradiate
its energy, this would transmit to him frustration.
In what degree this was caused by having noticed an estate agency
offer houses with a leasing contract of one hundred and twenty five
years little mattered, used as he was to the arguments of persuasion,
defined by him for commerce: joy of existence at the service of pious
souls, needy of avoiding the scary problem of the “Central Nucleus”.
Envy makes of the cerebellum a little beast, he found annotated in his
diary. To suppose that this bad quality didn’t belong to him is the
minimum we can grant him; similarly jealousy, it was written a few
pages ahead, makes the scalp shaggy.
Lately it had been stronger and stronger in him that pleasure or joy
of existence that he perceived in many others and he felt ready to
enter some sort of social environment.
Poor man, living in such a way, wrapped in thoughts that didn’t find a
focal outlet in a mental exit for clinging to the “Central Nucleus” he
was a bit grumpy, so much that he began thinking so: “The need for a
wife to take care of would make me realize myself as a shepherd;
between souls and sheep, moreover, feeling comfortable in the spirit,
who gained most pleasure would be obvious discovery”. This
consideration of constructive belonging thundered in his mind, which
autonomously inhibited by such admonition, inquired: “Why did I ask
myself this question? Could ever be possible to liken souls to sheep?”
He was seeking the answer, arguing over the previous values, adding
new ones, catalogued at the most high points of his being: men and the
fear of god, in the commandments of His Nature. People, he noted
reflecting, which barely register consensus to the new, be it a modus
vivendi or a judgement on existence, move in the crowd of effects
avoiding causes that clash in the imminent bleating confusion of the
edgy opinions arrived by now at the end of the fence; then he
exclaimed: “Yes, yes –that’s right! A shepherd without goats or sheep,
what a farmer is he?” What has a driver to do with this, he was asking
himself, judging at first sight the yarn of a textile less thick on
the right sleeve that is supported by the desk and makes stand up in
comparison the heavier fabric on the left, less worn by rubbing.
He bethought long time to assert: “If I want a son, if I feel that
need, it is not for the innate research of god – surely I will not
address him to the clergy. – After the baptism in church, together
with the child I will recommend myself to the eternal father and I’m
sure that Our Lord will give grace to keep away from me the idea of
gripping him with the problem of the “Central Nucleus” till
exhaustion. Even if there should be fewer priests tomorrow, my son
will exemplify his research of god as a layman. Even if, one must
admit honestly, the question is not going to be resolved distressing
myself on the references of the fabrics, and it is better to face it
as a clergyman, although I really hope to have solved the whole
problem of cult for the day of tomorrow when he will be an adult”.
With this thought flashing in his mind, he accompanied with his eyes
the herd that looked the same as the day before, while it went away
into the green, he swore to himself to put on a family and
comfortable home, shortly, with gadgets and accessories: “everything
will be fine with a leasing” he thought seriously, hoping that his
grand-grandchildren, if it was necessary to go so far, wouldn’t part
from the same intentions, with the discovery of some of his earlier
writings still worth of consideration, in case he himself didn’t work
on them in the meantime. The stories on paper were many and
undoubtedly dusty, left there in drawers, with no efforts, or maybe
for fear of having to plan them as it happened on that day on the hill
watching the sun beyond the kites, did they lie lazily?
He had to shake off the sluggishness of life, especially now, that the
anguish of a familiar image was manifest in its lack of presence of a
wife and children to make whole the existence  turned to the majesty
of his “Light”. So, reflecting on the jumps of the fence to fall
asleep, instead of counting, agreed that the herd had appeared
originally, same weeks earlier and now that equal, he was seeing it
for the…time number…which?
He tried to establish, relatively, if there were more goats or sheep
between the animals, but the important thing were the jumps in the
glare that he wasn’t able to quantify. Without adding that he wasn’t
sure of any measure…in the moment in which they stay or they go, the
dilemma advanced; how many times? There they are! There grazing! At
the same hour they represented themselves, to disappear short after in
the gash of light. Surely in earlier cases, there must have been the
sun. In this conditions would be difficult to fall asleep at the light
of the bed-side lamp, imagine switch on the television and give a peek
to the page of daily meteorology, to know the total number of clouds
that run after the fence as sheep and thanks to the sun count the
shadows, that come one after the other, jump after jump; it’s a boys’
play for the afternoon nap.
The day before the pasture had been in the same point were it
reappeared just a moment ago almost like a clock; certainly it was
punctual and the concomitance of place and time gave value to the
scenic thesis quickly descriptive, thanks to an open space lit by the
passage of the herd, well visible through the trees that raised tall
to brush against his window, watching through which, preparing two
hard-boiled eggs, he found himself focusing.
Observing him the day before we need to imagine our scientist in
trouble with the beard that he shaved every three days and had grown
very bushy, then suddenly he became lost in his usual absurd thoughts:
opening the container of the foam or soap, which bloats shaken by the
brush, he had noticed that the foam had disappeared completely along
its entire circumference, leaving a mere sense of flaring up between
the tentacles of his fingers that longing beyond the coffer squeezed
emptiness, apart from his cup with a tiny soapy trunk, on which he
couldn’t climb, not even mounting to…Sparta. He remembered then
Greece, when as a student he went there to admire and breath the Doric
greatness of the cone of Arcadia that makes of essentiality its
virtue; “Beautiful, incredible city” he murmured looking higher, over
the peak; the golden image reflected in the mirror of his hair.
Back to reality: he needed soap to add in the container, grating it as
he often used to do; he looked then into the mirror at himself with no
particular expression, but with the firm purpose of shaving, and this
you could easily read in his face, and knowing the time he allowed to
the blade for resting, you could rightly guess that the day had taken
a different turn dedicated to invention, because of this
inconvenience.
It must be admitted that the soap holder was convenient and elegant.
On the other hand the foamy bar, occasionally, is preferable because
of its functionality and now with this commercial social phenomenon
“leasing” as a new thinking that will come, that is further worry to
sedate, thanks to the formula of easy payment, on the part of a
stipendiary that counts the money that he doesn’t have… Watching out
of the window, he was making ready to whiten himself, foreboding to
have smeared strokes of water melted in lanolin that didn’t leave the
desired vaporous sign.
Calibrating drops of water, sipped, let in the little jug, he obtained
a very levy film of tiny bubbles that he blew on the hair of the
brush, to not let the foamy particles disperse together with the
pollen in the air of spring.
In such afternoons, often caught between the shave and the eggs, which
more peeled it is not possible to obtain, it is the inter-space
between morning and evening, stops of mental development coming and
going from his thought, which greet each other, after a short
reflecting break contemplating them, because they are manifestations
decided on the already cited pattern. For love of synthesis it is
necessary to affirm what follows: in analogies of times and spaces,
close in a long illuminated enclosure, everything is solved jumping a
fence. Little changes if he was in the middle of the pasture or just a
few steps away or he saw it pass; anyway after a bit, he would find
all the palimpsest of the most various inherent situations closed in a
unique “pastoral” programme and following the musical track left by
the notes he would have solved all? Thanks to the example of the case
just mentioned, it was already reckoned who had introduced himself and
financed, although he had only just joined in his own way, that was
compatible for an elaboration of a diversified process, since the time
of the affair denominated “Splinters of Thought” and among these was
mentioned perhaps the most successful “Methuselah my nephew”, comes
with pride to contact the clamour. When that was born, more then one
was fascinated by the project “Age” and on this idea he had invested,
noting the huge interest of situations that rotated around such a
context.
Follacchio perceived the speculative reality, despite all, because it
was the flowing and the registration of time that matured interests,
growing wealth for the society of who knows what; certainly it was
running from him and more dramatically, it invaded scientifically,
taking space possessed by his own truths, verified and not revealed.
Meanwhile, falling asleep, so, as for an intuitive fairy magic, from
other texts come in aid, frees himself of all the anxieties that
pincered him, making him fear an old age of “Cathar Heresy” read
between the pages of the “Professor of the Far Away”, stuff worth of a
Nobel, of Pirandellian memory. Think of the character’s aunties that
meet in the corridor and in such occasion talk and chatter –Behold! -
A sudden light when he was half asleep had taken form on the wall,
immediately after a thunderbolt in an almost clear sky; coming from
far away, the rumble was heard beyond the windowpane. If the light of
the lightning entered in the room ha aroused him, the thunder woke him
up completely and after an initial going astray he recomposed himself
onto the pillow. His mind stopped to function in a slow rhythm,
typical of doziness, but sibling like roaring arrows that rip the sky,
natural site of the “Central Nucleus”. Opening the eyes to this
weather mutation said: “The sun is just light, the planets are the
essential point of the reflected light – between a celestial body and
the other friction is generated and in this way heat is produced, in
other words energy, which through the points of gravitational force
goes back to the sun. It is consequential then that the system, while
gives energy it gains an equal amount of it thanks to the harmony of
the system, so it will never be exhausted remaining matter, because
light itself is matter: the most important! Not even the time to enjoy
such sentence that the doubt presented itself “Light is matter?” The
question was followed by astonishment.
In a general shake he sits on the bed between confused and perplexed,
commiserating himself for being fearful of God, postponing to an after
to ascertain if this new fact was good or bad for religion, when light
is synonymous of God. “Jokes of matter” he said. For an instant he had
feared that his cognitions, once associated would mock him. – So he
takes a camomile and light hearted falls asleep, with renewed
confidence in a shining tomorrow.
The park with so much green, just in front of his home, was surrounded
by tall trees along the perimeter parallel to the street. The entry
lane introduced itself with two giant elms one hundred feet tall or
more and very wide at the top, in a row following many other trees of
the same species and considerable size. Powerful trunks in a position
of rest, soon darted to the eye if the enormous arched foliage that
from a plant to the other melted in the air without wind, giving a
nice feeling of protection and comfort, especially passing under them
during sunny days. Through this lined up lane, covered with branches
and leaves, a large field with grass well grown and thick was reached,
even if lately bleating and bells were heard, not many to tell the
truth, and however the green space was huge, and there were enough of
these meadows. Observing the grassy lawn can be deducted that the
nomadic sheep could browse satisfactorily, going here and there with
no excessive damage done. The winding of the shadows of the path
became more sparse with the alternating of trunks, until the biggest
tree and most distant from the others, on the last curve where at the
first angle-sight, was noticed the tall plant librating imperiously in
the air; From that optical projection the whole field seemed to be
divided in many slices and the elm indicated the direction as a
perspective fulcrum.
Every time the scientist passed by that place couldn’t stop wondering
at the enormity of trunk and ramifications; from these in autumn an
infinity of leaves bigger than a hand fall amassing on the ground and
it is difficult to see one’s own shoes sank in them, transmitting on
the path creaking and noises typical of that season.
The professor while walking used to ask himself how old was this
vegetal expression grown so luxuriant and solemn.
The curiosity to know the age of the tree was strong, equal to the
desire to know how so many roots of this plant could grow in the air a
meter up the base of the trunk, where big pillar-boughs dived with
plastic elegance into the soil and all seemed a remarkable work of
botanical architecture. Fatally at this vision the question faded and
the mind didn’t ask further if they were really roots become trunks
for the lack of soil mysteriously disappeared at that spot.
“Have you ever tried to speak faster than you think? Imagine that I
write quicker than you could ever hope of talking”. It was even signed
“Merciful thought” incised in the wood and he read it along the entire
circumference of the trunk, at man’s height.
Dazed more than confused by the mark, between one root and the other,
now avoiding, now stumbling upon one, turning around the elm, the
scientist finds himself on the same starting point; incredulous and
still more perplexed he exclaims: “Impossible!”. He acted as if he
wanted to read a second time when a sudden blow of wind moved in a
rotating way an almost broken hanging bough that lifted an entire
double page of newspaper making it hover quickly in the air and
stamping it loudly in his face. Trembling he read the sheet “The World
Is Mine”. A vibrant whisper rose from the tree, with bigger impetus
and frenzy, moved the page and read on the other page – just a
sentence “The World Is Mine” everywhere, on all four sides, just that.
Moist with sweat, as if the desperation of a possession put him over
the expectations of his own responsibilities, stealing his time,
shaking him with no way out, wrapping him in that only repetitive
phrase “The World Is Mine”, he began to get up from himself.
He freed himself from the newspaper’s page which, reduced to
smithereens and ripped by the wind, hanged on him and droned in his
head, leaving him in the atrocious doubt of an amount of time without
an answer, while he asked himself what he had lived in that perpetual
instant around Elm. Nevertheless he perceived to belong to that
dimension, but the written one, that he couldn’t capitalize for the
absurdity of the situation, where the preceding instant was already
antiquity in a future one hundred and twenty five years ahead like an
house, when in the world, the leasing pushing itself in times always
longer would substitute all other forms of payment. To what value
would have raised that estate? What value could have had on the
international market the eventual acquisition with that formula, of
which he heard and of which he wasn’t able to fix the advantageous
contents of taxation in his mind? He felt to be at the right time to
go and seek the most convenient contractual offer, being the family
demand of bigger responsibility and set moreover that every year he
would have filled, without preamble, his revenue form with attached
payments, he discovered himself as a speculator on his own assets, and
this made him proud. In the exaggeration of this exasperation, he felt
the ground rise under his feet; Elm was coming out of the soil with
its roots.
Panicking he began running, legs flying on the earth trembling and
after a good while, panting, he turned around – The moving tree with
no brakes in the anchorage of the ground, skipping on its roots was
chasing him with growing confidence.
He breathed with full lungs and gathering all his strength, multiplied
by the dramatic situation, began to run prey of anxiety, the breath
lacked and by magic went back reflected in the direction of the
barrier of thick trees that lead into the depth of the forest, unique
and hopeful shelter, unless he was going to lock himself in the
hecatomb that could generate the impact of the vegetable giant.
Distension is the force of the expedient attempting to plan that frees
from worries, which, with Elm disarticulated, said farewell to the
noble questions on light; and if these belonged in purity or in
material transformation to the many applications, it wasn’t the right
time to check. There were ten more metres before the barrier, Elm’s
shadow advanced noisily, from behind it reached out forward, he
accelerated and it, following his run, approached, so much that the
sun irradiating its clear nature couldn’t be seen and with a
desperation more dramatic than that of a thirsty man in the desert or
of a castaway in the ocean, by enchantment, he found himself in the
forest. Even faster he hurried up, panting, at the centre of the thick
vegetation, taking pleasure in the structure of enormous size of that
place – the tall trees crammed, the one burdened on the other,
shouldn’t allow the passage of Elm. It was also of encouragement not
to hear the impact between the chosen shield and his stalker – this he
thought and trying to recover his breath stopped running, walking
towards the nearest field that opened itself in a slope on the ridge-
line of trees, giving the impression of precipitating down the valley.
Elm, though, foreseeing the move, could be there waiting for him?
At the end he resolved that maybe it was better to take time, he
didn’t even know why he was in this thick wood with no way out and in
order not to jump out the frying pan into the fire, better was to
evaluate, keeping hidden, other possibilities of escape.
Thanks to respiration exercises, the breath was coming back and with
analytic method of scientific rigour, he began establishing what the
hell had happened, in order to move soon. He wondered about his state
of calm, which index was brought to levels really remarkable in its
scale of value in such circumstances – and just for the sake of
“security of the species” he gave a circular look, exclaiming: “ Never
be that Elm slipped through the thick barrier of vegetation!” –
Declaration added almost to exorcise the idea of a strategic move of
the plant that absolutely had no chance of passing through those tiny
spaces. Besides being stuck there thinking couldn’t be considered as a
security plan based on speed, when he started running again. – Was
this the only winning tactic against Elm’s overpowering energy? –
Maybe there was another way out, thanks to the simple motive of the
pastoral plant in a silly key; that is the plant itself, in the exact
moment it gains conscience of itself, stops it, in this case pushing
the roots down the ground where it is. – Leaving us with no shadow, we
could say, where it stood before, at least free to use the subjunctive
mood – at the end it is exactly not asking more than due the beauty of
the shepherd’s tranquillity.
A new sensation pervaded him: the protective pleasure of finding
himself serene in the centre of a crowd of productive trees.
An ironic mask painted his face, immersed in the feeling of hearing
himself called “Professor Follacchio” he replied to himself on the
notes of: “Shite, what a crowd” like sarcastically the high spheres of
the faculty used to call him. This happened a time past but not far
ago, when he minimally beckoned, nose in the air, to the knowledge
that some colleagues were drawing copiously from his researches. It
was rumoured especially, of such Professor Ronzine, in odour of Nobel
coming soon, at least judging from the gossip into the hallways of the
university where he taught; then he laughed about it and was proud of
it, paraphrasing: distances are not bridged by adding ice cubes into
the glass, toasting to culture.
Encouraged by his unconscious ability to create points of strength for
himself, he beatified this transient thought that had him distracted
from reality, procuring him a state of total renewed mastery to face
the circumstances. In the mirror he watched only to shave, he knew to
be disliked by the others – he recalled with pleasure that his parents
called him gorgeous all the time, sure he would have liked watching
himself in the moment of greatest panic, perhaps even hastily, without
the others noticing.
Between the trees a light filtered like it were new, it was felt on
the skin, while it drew on the impenetrable face of fear, recognizable
only to himself, fixed into the memories of the departure of his
parents, who never had seen him tremble and in virtue of the good
name, in this interior state, he had to go back home, without being
enslaved by the terrifying Elm.
So, enraptured by the pantograph beauty of this new discovery, able to
donate the photographed face of a patrolling emotion, forgotten the
danger, he let himself be accompanied by the ray of light to be
conducted in the other field, taking him away from the enveloping
shadow. – This meadow, bigger than the last, introduces itself,
unusually, with a hill in the middle where the kites joyously fly
whistling, sometimes hiccupping, sometimes in a rhomboid whirlwind,
acute on the wings of the wind that wants to sever by force the flying
models, made of resistant but light textile, from the thread.
All around there was nobody. – It wasn’t possible to think of anything
else but a dream of solitude, encapsulated it was, in the nightmare of
a day started laughing, in the play of the kite with a mocking face.
The grassland was framed with trees in formation, intersected by very
narrow paths of leaves that covered the pavement – the lanes were
located in the cardinal points with only a route to access them, which
hardly could allow Elm’s passage. Help! – To whom could he shout that?
With the eye towards the lane, doctor Follacchio arrived on the top of
the hill, where, knackered by the endeavours, collapsed supine on the
grass, caressed by the sunset.
Bringing the fingers to massage his temples, with closed eyelids,
always in the direction of the main access, breathing slowly and
deeply, he allowed his mind to recollect the events, to reach a
dynamic “so” that secured him once and for all.
He found out that the way back was mainly image. – Like a swindler
that wants to avoid the police after a misdeed he started guarded,
attentive in depersonalizing himself in the search of an alibi for a
crime he didn’t commit and didn’t even think; immediately doing so, he
was distracting himself from the importance of sedating anxiety, a
thing able to destroy if not planned, so he was preparing as
convenient to the quantification in meters of the distance between
there and home, trying to be, thanks to the paths with a barrier or a
precipice, the farthest possible from Elm, wishing that it had
desisted from its intents, otherwise, how arrest it?
Going down the hill from the other side and going back in for a very
short journey on the ridge-line of trees, he would have arrived at a
field on the side of a little lake and than still more spots of
shadowed vegetation and more ponds, to finally reach the villa with
assured remembrances, which stood well visible on the wide glade,
where crossing another wood and then leaving behind the last water
pond and more thick vegetation, he would have finally turned on the
way home. He estimated that from the point where he was, belly in the
air, he had still to cover a distance of two and half miles, to
reappear on the houses that run on the side of the oxygenated lung –
calm down! He needed that after so many apprehensions, when from the
sky a leaf fell on his hand.
He opened his eyes and saw the enormous snarl of roots and soil,
sinking into the green that it left.
A frenetic start, a rattle of voice, a thud! On all fours on the
carpet. Dragging his body and with a heavy head, he reached the chair
– sat down with the high part of the torso on the table, watching the
bed in the chaos of his own crushed heart, then sieved the space,
searching for the devilish thing to be relegated in the corner,
elevating it at zero potency, faithful of finding it thanks to the
help of his guardian angel, even if he had been far from the altar for
long time.
“The World Is Mine” came back in his mind.
A sweet smile accompanied him while he took a seated composed
position. He had the impression that the key of what happened was in
one of the messed loose sheets on the table; these paper holders were
full of notes, but there was no trace of Elm, who had been offended,
wounded by a blunt body, and he himself had noticed it mortified in
its liquid humours of resin straining from the incision on the
vegetable bark, livid and swollen as pain of flesh, while he,
sufficiently, observed. – Yes! –He, miserable and wretched, in that
surreal contest waiting for the wind, read the writing. At this point,
like a planning kite, by his deduction he got stuck, because he had
forgotten the noble earthly conception, expressed in the idea of
belonging to the globe, himself inviting every single individual to
feel as a integral part of the “Whole” in the exaltation of the
celestial harmony, where he was taken by surprise, because he had
undergone the charm of a writing that faded Nature. That writing
enthralled, but it was out of tune, it wasn’t suave. The shameful
wound of Elm, in his sparse “whateverism” of a literate without a
publisher, trampled on him unforgivably. A light humming came out of
the wall: the grass on the poster seemed animated, the same was read
into the trees that enjoyed the good weather, satisfied by the last
examination of conscience; and how much it had been boiling in the
head gave awareness, as a trunk that acted as a ladle stirring the
forms in the earth under its roots was stamped the faculty to affirm
the present in natural colour and forms.
The two boiled eggs, immersed for the incipient hunger for a too short
time under running water, had scalded his palate; the “Central
Nucleus” hadn’t cooled down.
THE END
 Follacchio written in 1994 transleted in English on 2008
Published on newsgroup it.arti.scrivere 27/8/2002
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