The refusal and other stories

By Andrea Benigni

Eight short stories, often built on dialog, to tell about some aspects of life in today's world, its contradictions and, above all, the difficult search for new values.
The tale "The Refusal", which gives the title to this short collection, was written in the aftermath of the fall of the Twin Towers: the episode is present in watermark, it could be any other situation of war and violence to which, unfortunately, we are too accustomed nowadays, but that people cannot accept, because the normality are not death, violence or massacre, that make people lose their reference points, as it is also stated in the tale "War". In an absurd world where the only parameter for the evaluation is the high efficiency in our job (as it is ironically stated in "The Zoo" and "The new Managind Director" ), perhaps all is not lost: there are still stories of love and jealousy ("Annalisa"), the natural instinct arrives yet to prevail on our rationality ("The Jump"), the people try to build new relationships, to find new formulas to love each other and live together: see for example the stories told in "The Foreigner", which presents the difficulties, but also the beauty of a relationship between people of different nationalities and cultures so distant as Italian and Somali, or even "On the edge of the bed", which describes the formation of a family quite different from the pattern we are accustomed to consider, with the common life of a husband, a wife, the husband’s lover and the two children that the man has had with the two women.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edizioni Esordienti E-book
• Release date: Jul 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9788866900832

Book preview

author.

The Jump

I was a fool to let them into the house.

Since then I kept cursing myself, and I wondered what it was that pushes people to upset their peaceful daily lives, the delicate equilibrium gained year after year, with so much difficulty.

I looked into the mirror of my pale, sunken face.

My resigned and unkempt appearance made me feel very uncomfortable.

It was because of those two.

The tranquillity, reached with so much difficulty and only in part after the event, has now disappeared.

I wandered around the house, a prey to anxiety, and when dusk arrived I could hear them calling.

Come on, don’t be afraid, it’s just a jump, a little jump.

My eyes opened wide as I watched them with horror and anger.

I was the one who had brought them into the house.

Crazy! I was a fool.

I stared at them, shaking like a leaf. They were there, motionless, waiting. I knew only too well that they would wait years for me. The devil twins.

No noise was able to cancel their insistent taunting voice.

Come on, jump down! Come on, it only takes a moment.

Then I turned towards them and shouted leave me alone! I am not going to jump. I can’t. I never will.

Go on, sooner or later you’ll jump. Do it now.

They urged me on, they wanted me.

I pressed my hands over my ears, so as not to hear them. I screwed up my eyes so as not to see them.

I kept screaming no. Their words weakened my resolve. I was confused. What perverse instinct destroys an equilibrium gained after so many sacrifices?

My long suppressed anger surged upwards and made me jump. My arms embraced all the energy of my body and, like two springs, they flung me off my wheelchair. I fell heavily onto the floor.

My two shoes were there, just a few steps away from me. I squirmed along the floor and slid them onto my feet.

The Refusal

-1-

Another horrific sleepless night.

I lay staring at the ceiling in the shadows, to make sure that it still exists. That I still exist. Like every morning the first thought that comes to mind is that I’m still alive. I wipe away a few drops of sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.

I sit on the edge of the bed, my feet resting on the floor. I search of something to support me.

Today I don’t have to go shopping: I don’t have to drive the truck along the uneven roads, praying not to be blown by a mine; I will not have to wear the bullet-proof vest and load the bags of food with my head lowered between my shoulders to protect it from any stray bullets shot by snipers in the area. And it will not be the weight of the food sacks that make my knee, which was still weak after the attack, swell up, it will be the hours standing in front of the operating table. Today I will remain in the hospital all day, and part of the night, depending on the amount of mangled flesh that the grenades of the enemy are able to destroy.

Then I will return home, more or less impregnated with the sickly sweet smell of the corpses, depending on how well the operations on the wounded over the last few days had gone.

Almost like a religious ritual, my hand moves towards the switch and tries to turn the lights on.

The light comes on.

There is still electricity. We will be able to use the hospital equipment and preserve the little medicine that is left.

-2-

I walk around the hospital yard limping.

I pause a moment to rest, and I see my assistant gesticulating nervously as he speaks on his phone.

I reach him at the door, leaning on my crutches.

He finishes his phone call and looks at me shaking his head.

What more good news do we have?

They made a right mess, they have attacked by land and by air, have you seen it on television? They also hit the hospital, they’re bringing all the wounded over to us.

What are we going to do now?

If we accept them all we will not be able to prevent an epidemic.

Keep calm. I stare from the entrance at the insane amount of beds and wounded packed into the corridor to take advantage of every single corner. Images of slaves piled on top of one another in ships of times gone by come to my mind.

The smell is repulsive, like a punch in the stomach.

There is a smell of rotting stores, flesh where flies and bacteria can feast.

Do we know how many deaths there where in the area they bombed? I ask, thinking of my relatives who live in the city which was bombed the night before. The enemy has destroyed the mobile phone, landline and Internet antennas.

It’s impossible to contact anyone to find out to how they are.

Do we know anything? What do you mean do we know anything?

The names of the dead, a list, anything like that?

"The dead? A list