Outside: A Posillipo Story of Magic and Flesh
A New Year's tale about breaking free from the ordinary
Happy New Year!
Here is "Outside," my short story. I wrote it thinking of thresholds - those moments when we pause at the edge of what we know. Writing about transformation felt right for the start of this year when we all stand before unopened doors. This tale grew from wondering what lies beyond our daily rhythms, beyond the safe harbours we build. Like you, perhaps, I sometimes glimpse something extraordinary gleaming through the cracks of routine. So I offer you these words about that space where the familiar and the strange meet, where reality starts to dream. I hope they find you well.
"Outside"
Beneath the water's surface, the world gurgles in concentric waves. The Jacuzzi exhales bubbles that dance around the chrome drain. "Che vuole questa musica stasera" [What does this music want tonight], Peppino Gagliardi's voice spreads through the air, liquid notes merging with air spheres. The water caresses her immersed legs. A drop from the faucet generates perfect circles. Dull thuds penetrate from the terrace. She remains motionless, eyes closed, while the music envelops the room. Her breast barely emerges from the water, small and delicate like those of Bernini's angels.
More thuds, more insistent now. Her eyes open, and her body rises from the tub. The white foam slides like milk in the Greek amphora of her hips, poured along the line of her buttocks, culminating in a gentle bifurcation. She crosses the room naked, each step a wet footprint. She moves with feline grace through the luxurious Posillipo apartment, whose windows frame the gulf. In the living room, a life-sized mammoth head pulses with fluorescent green in the half-light. From a nearby terrace emerges the figure of a man wielding a large fork over the coals. His hairy chest glistens with sweat, his belly swaying to the rhythm of his movements.
She stops in the centre of the room. The smartphone's glow illuminates her face as she types. On the screen, he writes: "The crude banality, the horrendous, the prodigy, the surreal. I want it all with you! I told you I'm out of my mind, right?" She responds, with a crooked smile: "I like this... interesting! because I'm out of my mind too 😜"
"Titì, t'a magn a sasicce?" [Titì, will you eat the sausage?] thunders the man from the terrace. Another thud, louder this time. Her gaze rises above the railing and her breath stops. A gigantic polar bear, white as an apparition, licks its paw with aristocratic phlegm. Their eyes meet - two perfect circles, hers dark and wide with horror and wonder combined, the bear's deep and black.
A seagull swoops down on the grill and grabs a sausage. "All'anema è chi t'è mmuort!" [Damn your dead relatives!] shouts the hairy man, waving his fork toward the sky. She approaches the bear on tiptoe. Her buttocks contract with each step, a typically southern carnal geography.
The bear lifts its muzzle to the sky and sings with a caressing voice:
"Che vuole questa musica stasera
Che mi riporta un poco del passato
Che mi riporta un poco del tuo amore
Che mi riporta un poco di te
Un poco di te?"
[What does this music want tonight
That brings me back a little to the past
That brings me back a little of your love
That brings me back a little to you
A little of you?]
But she no longer hears it. The waves of the sea trace other circles, infinite echoes of a universe where even polar bears sing Peppino Gagliardi, but buttocks remain wonderfully, irredeemably earthly.
Feel free to leave a comment.
I have woven tales for anyone who cares to read them. My books await you on Google Books. You can also check out my stories on Medium.com.
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