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Notturno Veneziano

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Aplogizes for the delay... :nusenuse:
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'... what’s going on?'

'Quick! Quick! Get out! Everybody out! ... '

The howling of the fire alarm interrupts the interview, we hurry out of the security door onto the square in front of the theatre. Thick smoke with an acrid smell has invaded the space between the palaces overlooking the Rio and the theatre, it is spreading along the streets. The nightmare of a new, devastating fire of La Fenice is taking shape.

Citizens and tourists are crowding, inquisitive, on the bridges. Fortunately it is daytime, the alarm has worked, the fire-fighters are coming. The police are already here, investigations will start soon. Today's performance will be cancelled, and I have lost my refuge, the room on the third floor - I can’t go up there to recover my things, and I haven’t even got the keys to Vio’s house ... where shall I sleep tonight?

There’s a rumor going around that this arson attempt has arisen from the controversy that has, for the past few days, gripped the city tabloids, fuelled by absurd ideas of demoralisation and demands for censorship of the ballet. They say that a leaflet was found with a message, signed by a phantom 'Congregation' Congregatio Terroris Reipublicae Venetiae Servorum – ‘The Congregation of Terror of the Servants of the Venetian Republic’!

The 'Congregation'? But how can a reality materialize from a nightmare? Today, from the dawn of time, this 'Congregation' has come back from my dream. Who are they? There seems to be no doubt that their target is me - what do they want from me? What have I to do with them? True, I escaped their pursuit, but it happened in a nightmare. Are they looking for revenge? I'm in danger, but how can I defend myself from such a threat? If were to tell people, they’d say I'm crazy ... chased by a nightmare? By ghosts? They’d lock me up immediately - in an asylum, if there still were any. But why have I ended up in this story?

Madame Chloé has called us together in the conference room of the luxury hotel where she is staying. Everyone’s face is surprised, alarmed, I've a sense of unease, feeling I am the centre of attention, as if the actions of these madmen are somehow 'my fault'...

Madame has learnt that the theatre will be unusable for some weeks, the fire spread to a key point, the power plant, without which the theatre can not function. Repairing the damage, and upgrading security, cannot be completed in a short time. After tomorrow's performance, which will be held at the Teatro Malibran, which is really a branch of La Fenice, we must leave room for other shows that are already scheduled there. So we shall start our tour of Europe immediately, the first stage being Paris, at l’Opéra - good news, it mitigates the anxiety that is seizing us.

Searching the memory of my phone - which I had almost forgotten in the excitement after the escape from the theatre - I find I’ve recorded Vio’s maid’s number, the one in Mestre who was at the house when I went to collect the clothes they used to dress Vio for burial. I call her, anguish gripping my stomach. She tells me she has a duplicate of the keys for the apartment. Since the Police have removed the seals they’d set for their investigations, she has kept up her cleaning duties, now just once a week. We make an appointment, early this evening outside the house in Mestre.
 
WHY?

The setting sun gives a strange light to the interior of the local train that runs across the Ponte della Libertà, the umbilical cord that connects Venice to the rest of the world. Its beams strike my eyes. Immersed in my thoughts, I had not realised that a storm is approaching from the sea...

How my life has changed in such a short time, and how I have changed! Until a few months ago I was a dancer without a future, forced to endure humiliations simply to survive. I didn’t want to acknowledge then that I had a treasure of a boy who just wanted to have me with him, who was just like I was. I really only became aware of him when I lost him forever...

Now I have to prepare myself for a completely different life: a successful dancer, touring around the world, performing in every capital - it looks like a bright future, but a strange presentiment winds its way into my thoughts, there is something unfinished, something with which I have yet to settle my account ...

I always sense when danger is approaching, I feel it in my stomach, an echo rings in a crevice of my conscience, I feel like a child lost in the dark, in a fog. So I'm looking for that little girl and trying to console her, holding her tight to my chest to stifle her sobs. I take her hand and lead her down the road ...

Mestre, last stop. I have to hurry, the sound of thunder is approaching, it is starting to rain, it is not very far from Vio’s house, just across the street ...

But when I'm in the middle of the road, it happens: a black car, an old, luxury model, crashes into me, the collision is very violent, I hit the windscreen with my head, it's as if my brain has been seized and swirled by an irresistible force in large, then smaller, and ever smaller, concentric circles at a growing, frighteningly increasing speed, until it is hurled with frightful, brutal, ruthless violence against the hard core of those circles. ..

I half-turn myself, open my arms, and I fall forward onto the wet pavement. Maybe I'm still alive ...

I’m aware that someone is approaching, but my body no longer responds to commands. The echoing sound of an ambulance siren wakens me for a moment ...

The newspapers have for some time now been carrying reports of this mysterious incident that has moved the entire population of Venice and Mestre. In today’s edition, one of them says:

'The artist has been hospitalised in the Intensive Care Unit of the Mestre hospital since last month because of a brain haemorrhage caused by impact with the vehicle that has collided with her. Her condition is improving day by day, even if slowly. The doctors have not yet announced their prognosis, but the latest CT scan confirms a positive development. In a few days he should be able to leave the ICU. Last Monday, an official bulletin issued by her doctors announced that she had regained consciousness. Her vital functions have remained stable.

The investigation into the incident is continuing, the police are working in the dark, to date they have found no trace of the car ... '
 
But when I'm in the middle of the road, it happens: a black car, an old, luxury model, crashes into me, the collision is very violent, I hit the windscreen with my head, it's as if my brain has been seized and swirled by an irresistible force in large, then smaller, and ever smaller, concentric circles at a growing, frighteningly increasing speed, until it is hurled with frightful, brutal, ruthless violence against the hard core of those circles. ..
:eek::eek::eek: That's not possible ! Not you !!!
 
Why?

Why am I here?

Where am I?

Who is this woman who’s stroking my hand, smiling?

Who am I? What’s happened?

I feel my head is wrapped in bandages, needles are in my arms, connected to small, transparent tubes coming from flasks full of liquid that is flowing down, instilling itself into my veins...

I still can’t see what’s around me, everything seems foreign to me, far away...

I'm confused, I can’t remember anything, not even my name...

Something is happening around me, people are moving around my bed, they’re talking excitedly, but I can’t understand a word of what they’re saying ... it seems something extraordinary is happening, but what?

I'm scared, fear takes hold of me, I try to hide myself, lowering my head down under the white sheets What do all these people who are smiling at me want to tell me? Words I cannot understand.

‘... she’s conscious!'

'... alert and responding to stimuli!'

Now I’m starting to feel pain - pain so real and tangible that it can be seen as a dark presence always with me, a black alter ego that holds me back each time I try to move my head. I’m crying, even though I do not know why.

Days go by, I get a few visits, people I can hardly remember, except that I’ve seen their faces before. One of them, who seems particularly moved at seeing me, says her name is Frau Helga. She kisses me on the forehead, I smile at her. I would like to ask her who I am, what has happened, but I cannot speak, only a groan comes out of my mouth, then a tearful cry. A young man, he says his name is Stin, squeezes my right hand in his, I see my reflection in the lenses of his glasses, my head is all wrapped up, where is my hair? He has brought me a bunch of red roses.

Their visits are brief, I get too emotional, but I look forward to the next one ... I wonder if I can sort out the tangled skein of my memories ...

After I’ve stayed in my bed for a long time, I’m allowed to sit up. Today I’ve started taking my first steps. I feel uncertain, as if I’m walking in the dark, I carry my legs forward dragging my feet on the floor. I stop, holding onto the arm of the nurse who’s accompanying me. Even my efforts to re-learn words is bearing fruit, I can ask for water if I'm thirsty, I can greet those who come to visit me. I ask the doctors who I am, they say that my name is Gabriella, but I seem to have had a different name, it seems to me that it was Juliet ...

I ask Frau Helga, to confirm what the doctors have told me. She tells me it's true, for a short time I was Juliet, but that was in a ballet, my real name is Gabriella - or Gaby, as she calls me she. She has brought me some photographs taken during the show: ye, it's me, dressed in white veils, dancing on the stage of a theatre. She has also brought a strange box, from which comes music ...

And a miracle happens: as if a light had been turned on in a room, a dark room, memories are flocking to come out of the shadows in which they’ve been hidden. Here he is, my love, on the ground, dead, I don’t know how ... it's Vio, that’s what he’s called!

I try to get up, the music calls me ... yes, I’m walking on tiptoes, like I did when I was a child whenever I heard music, without shoes – but I slip disastrously, Frau Helga just gets to grab me before I hurt myself by falling.

Tonight is the night when memories emerge from the past ...

I am very agitated, perspiring, moaning in pain. The nurse who is my guardian angel is watching me, she does not abandon me for a moment. Little by little, like in a painting on an artist’s canvas, a jigsaw puzzle, my memories, my life is put back together in my mind - but with some confusion, I still don’t recognize certain figures that keep appearing in my memory ...

Today is the day of truth: I will have to look in the mirror...

Carefully the doctors remove the bandages from around my head, an operation that they have already done several times since I regained consciousness, but they have never allowed me to look at myself. They check the condition of my injuries, it seems that everything is as expected. A psychologist is by my side, she gives me the mirror, the beating of my heart is in overdrive, I see a face framed by arabesques of curving, entwining red lines, on the scalp of a skull without hair. It is as if my face has been removed and then attached to the bone. My heart pauses, I seem to faint...

Yes, but I recognize myself, it's me. I turn away from the mirror. The psychologist smiles at me, it seems these surgeons have done a good job. It is difficult to accept such a radical change, but over time, when my hair can regrow and mask the scars it will be easier. The features of my face - my eyes, nose, lips, all seem intact. I’d feared worse. The psychologist comforts me, everything will return as it was before, the most important thing is to retrieve the sense of balance that I still lack. I often tumble to the floor, as if I am no longer able to control my legs.

Now I shall have to leave this hospital, the emergency is over, I will complete my rehabilitation in a clinic. Unfortunately it is a long distance away, which will prevent me from having close by those people who have never left me, a reason for further anxiety and pain. I don’t want to think about my past as a ballerina any more, in this condition I shall never be able to dance again, but the important thing is that I am still alive.

One thought still torments me, a question I cannot answer: 'Why?
 
THE TIME

They have came back, my 'friends', as I call them. The ghosts have returned, the horde of demons secretly entering my brain. As I walk through the hospital corridors, I’m alert to every draught, it may be the breath of a ghost. I avoid places where there are curtains, for daggers are glinting everywhere, behind those curtains that sway and swell in the wind, they are hiding, ready to attack me. I see them wandering, entering my room at night, and the strange desires this excites in me are arousing too, they drive me on to unconscious nocturnal sexual activities, forms of masturbation, sometimes violent, and potentially dangerous for those who are near. I dare not talk about it with the doctors for fear of being be humiliated and considered crazy, I would risk being locked up in a clinic for psychiatric illnesses ...

Before I leave, everyone comes to say goodbye to me. Frau Helga, who says she will soon come to visit me where I am to be taken, Stin, who advises me to call him at any time, the Director, he is very emotional - and also the Lawyer, the Accountant and the Notary, who make me sign documents, for my own sake, they say, to avoid 'difficulty' in case there are any 'problems' during my treatment: perhaps they already think I am crazy?

It is early in the morning when I get into the medical car that is to take me to this nursing home, where I hope to recover my lost time and memory. The valley is green, trees and mountains, streams, small villages of happy-looking houses, and finally, in the distance, the profile of what looks like a convent, with a church and other buildings, partly new, partly old, a high wall of stone, a rampart like the wall of a fortress, a long avenue that leads to an entrance barred by a large gate. My anxiety grows, I perceive this place to be more like a prison than a clinic where I can recover my peace of mind ...

As I am unloading my little luggage, I hear screams. I turn around, people are running, pointing to the top of a tower, the bell-tower of the church. A woman, wrapped in a white sheet, shaking in terror as if she no longer knows where to go, looks around for an escape, turns back, then launches herself into space ...

Time passes with agonising slowness, the cloth lifts up, uncovering the naked body, the legs are swinging as if they want to run back up the path they’ve just left, the hands try to cling to the air that surrounds them as it were solid matter, or liquid in which the body could swim, but it cannot stop, the air does not support it ...

The crash on the cobblestones produces a dry noise, the shattering of bones, and a dark sound, the mangling of flesh.

I run, I don’t know why, perhaps to help this pile of bloody rags. I am still horrified and petrified at witnessing the slaughter of this poor body. It is a young woman. Blood is seeping out of the mouth, nose, ears, there is a wide wound in the smashed skull. The legs are destroyed, the femurs driven into the abdomen.

A man, the priest who must be the director of this convent of nursing nuns, comes to drag me away, but before he seizes me and turns me away, I have time to notice deep bleeding wounds around the wrists and ankles of this miserable wretch. What are these wounds? Why this suicide?

I am trembling like a leaf. A nun approaches to take me away from this scene of horror. This 'recuperation' in the nursing home has not begun auspiciously, I shall need caring for if I'm to get over this violent emotional trauma ...
 
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