The Dance of Shadows

By Nicky Persico

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A silent journey, passionate and unforgettable

Each one of us has shadows in the soul that no light can ever really erase. They live in us and sometimes dance around us. Too often we cannot see them and yet we feel their presence because they exist somewhere in our unconscious and, only by facing them, can we understand their true nature. This novel tells of a journey to the depths of the soul, a journey that will depend on how far the reader wants to go, where they want to leave from, where and when they want to return. The journey is cruel, silent, passionate and unforgettable and skirts the way and the conventions to take us out of time. The rhythm of writing is the same as that of breathing; the pace is that of a glance, time is restricted to a dance step while still dilated by a dream, in the attempt to discover the harmony of returning to the same place that we believe we have never left.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jul 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781547599332

Book preview

To all who are on a journey. Have a good trip.

One day

when I didn't care for the world

I invented my own.

And that is where I live.

Every day, at dusk, time begins to slow down.

Before the darkness begins to fall like snow covering everything, the light dims, spreading softly over the cities and the cats on the roofs, the poplars and the lindens, the beaches, the forests, the cars and the countryside, on books and young people on motorbikes, and on the water that reflects and multiplies the colors everywhere.

All the house windows become iridescent, and announce the imminence of evening.

Finally, the horizon is set ablaze with orange and blue, which then slowly changes to ultramarine.

It is at dusk the time of thoughts, memories, deep sighs and held breath. If one could count, one would discover that, at that moment, around the world the greatest number of eyes are looking at the sky.

In that moment, everything appears to be as beautiful as can be: even the anonymous, cold areas filled with factories that are piled up at the end of town, when the perfume of the light wind invades the immense avenues that are all the same, deserted; now silent.

Exactly there, perfectly, on that day in late May, at the exact center of an immense and empty receiving and loading bay, standing, motionless with the sunset in the background, a well-shaped man was silhouetted, wrapped in a tightly fitting buttoned coat, next to an old, well cared for car that had just been parked right in the middle of that gray asphalt lake.

He took a deep breath, immersed in the silence, broken only by a few sheets of newspaper that tried in vain to fly away, and then he exhaled slowly.

He opened the car door, flexed his legs and leaned into the compartment. He closed his eyes with his fists on the seat, breathing the scent of it fully into his lungs.

Then he got up, looked all around, gently picked up a bottle from a recess between the front seats, slipped it into his pocket, pulled back, gently closed the door again, and softly caressed the roof of the car.

Finally he turned his back and walked away slowly. Without ever looking back he reached the limits of the endless open space. Disappearing behind a chipped gray wall, he began to walk along an enormous driveway bordered by rusted corrugated sheets.

As the minutes passed, the darkness began to stipple everywhere slowly like dust, covering all views; suddenly large cones of light appeared from street lamps, and in the sky ghostly red lamps signaled invisible towers.

With lowered eyes, the man, named Asdrubale, looked down at his own steps and listened intently to the sound, in the silence that surrounded him, clearly hearing the rhythmic alternation of his right foot with his left, there was no other noise, in that day that had become evening, except for the faint echo, distant and shapeless, of the din of the metropolis against the background of that small world.

By that time the questions in his mind had also been silenced. The answers, on the other hand, were no longer of any importance and had dissolved until they disappeared, useless.

Everything looked new, clear, fresh and light. As it never had before.

This was, this evening, the last time. He had caressed that old car with love and gratitude after having traveled together for years on the same identical ring roads, inhospitable and desolate winters, sheltered by the heated passenger compartment, while the radio warmed the soul keeping him in contact with the world. And in the summer, at nightfall, he had dreamed with his windows wide open and his eyes too, fantasizing about the lights that dotted the horizon.

That car had been his world, his refuge, his reassuring and pleasant companion. It had always asked so little, in exchange, and had never asked questions. It certainly had a soul; almost ashamed of himself, he had always secretly thought about it. And, one day, he had even begun to believe it was true. One morning he grasped a hold of his courage and spoke to her as he drove, feeling suddenly, to his surprise, relieved of a slight anxiety.

And on closer inspection, in the eyes of anyone else, that last gentle caress given before setting off at the end of the day, clearly would have appeared as a salutation, a tender farewell.

A short while later it had even happened to him with a pen.

It had been with him for years now; he had a clear memory of that birthday that it had been given to him as a present, goodness. Now the Bakelite had ample, marked signs of use, unrepeatable and precious signs of sacrifice. One morning he caught himself looking at it and feeling it was unfair, for all the times he had considered it to be a mere object, and he remembered the dismay he felt the day he had lost it, when with half-closed eyes he found himself saying to himself: O pen, my pen, who knows how lonely you are, and how much you suffer. Surely you are wondering how I could forget you. Forgive me. Forgive me. I'm sorry.

And so, time after time, object after object, he gradually began to become attached to things as if they were alive. Sometimes more than to people, because he had begun to convince himself that they had even more heart.

He reached a point such that once it even happened when the car broke down, and it came to him to say it was ill, and had to be checked because he had almost wanted to take it to the hospital rather than to a mechanic.

Having become conscious of this, he had started masking it, moderating it by externalizing it. No one would have understood his way of being.

And instead, he really loved things. How could it be otherwise?

The car, for example, they had done many things together. In that life that is always the same, often unjust, cold, ungrateful.

How can we forget certain incandescent dawns on traffic routes that are all alike, or to dream breathlessly of thousands of adventures? Dry in the torrential rain, sheltered from the wind in the lashing storm, in the heat, in the freezing cold, and cool in the stifling heat: she was always the one to protect him, in an inhospitable world, when, some nights, like now, the city, there at the end, resembled a large spaceship with a thousand and one lights, that had landed from a planet situated who knows where.

Yes: he loved things. They could also tell him that he had gone mad, if they really wanted to. He knew very well, after all, what everyone believes – fools – that things are not better than people. This however may not be the case. It is enough to look around, at what happens: humans, yes, can do dreadful things.

In the meantime, slowly it had become dark, and he had reached the end of that wide avenue.

He raised his collar and looked around, to his right, far away, the urban spaceship. On his left, it was dark as pitch; outskirts or countryside, or who knows what else that was unknown.

The choice was simple, after all.

Because this time it was enough, he was really tired. With everything. Of thinking, of waking up, of getting up. Of doing things everyday that made no sense in order to stay alive and therefore be able to do things that had no meaning. Concentrically meaningless.

Only the sunsets remained, and the sunrises, and things. To be able to dream, and therefore really live.

He set off decisively down a small dirt road. A bright moon illuminated the countryside, around him.

He didn't feel lonely. No, he wasn't. He had something important with him. He remembered when the pearl of water that he jealously guarded in his pocket had entered the car’s interior and come into his life. Early one morning, when the sky was clear.

Suddenly, from the slightly open window, came a burst of mysterious rain. Not even a cloud as far as the eye could see. And it ended up soaking the sleeve of his coat so much that he had to squeeze it out in the office; inadvertently a large drop entered the little bottle he usually used to carry his coffee with him. Freshly washed it was on the desk to dry.

He lay his coat on the radiator, took the bottle and looked inside: he was able to see himself reflected in that liquid and mobile sphere, and it was as though, all of a sudden, he recognized himself.

But how strange.

He put the cap back on and closed it in a drawer. And later he looked again, and once again he saw himself through the glass.

He saw himself, I say; and I mean just that. He had a perception of himself, and he had never really experienced that, to look at himself as he was, and finally he appreciated himself.

At the