The Wooden Hens

By Raffaele Messinese

The stories in this collection retrace my personal history of literary fascinations and unexpressed emotions, which arose from them over decades, while in me grew the suggestions inspired by the stories of Lovecraft, Poe, Borges, Calvino, Kafka, Musil and various other authors of the same strand. These suggestions gradually intertwined with my interests regarding surrealism, together with my studies on fairy tales. All this inner universe of mine has given life to these stories, sometimes minimal flashes that seem to spring from dreams, other times more complex narrative textures that unconsciously brought me back to the sense of wonder that captured me when I was a very young reader, when I perceived the metaphysical and grotesque spirit of unresolved curiosity for the human soul while it strives to grasp the pure mystery of creation. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raffaele Messinese
• Release date: Apr 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215892329

Book preview

Table of Contents

The Wooden Hens

The Afterliving

Inventarium

The Wooden Hens

Doll Daze

Moon in the Well

Duck à l’Orange

Blindly

Auntie Lisiza’s Lair

The Fly

Aperitif Time

The Great Cobweb

Afterword

About the Author

Raffaele Messinese

THE WOODEN HENS

and other metaphysical stories

Copyright © 2023 Raffaele Messinese

Cover Image: Fence by Syaibatul Hamdi from Pixabay

To the friends

that have shared the gift of imagination,

to the authors

who have inspired magic to these humble stories.

Index

The Afterliving

Inventarium

The Wooden Hens

Doll Daze

Moon in the Well

Duck à l’Orange

Blindly

Auntie Lisiza’s Lair

The Fly

Aperitif Time

The Great Cobweb

Afterword

About the Author

––––––––

THANKS

I’d like to thank all the people that over the years have appreciated the ideas behind these stories and have encouraged me to keep on writing them.

The Afterliving

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A small bunch of vehicles were running on the roads adjacent to the cemetery on that Sunday morning. The calm was nearly absolute. I didn’t know how to explain it, but that silence and solitude had brought back to my mind certain placid spring Sundays... but that had been several decades before. Perhaps it was because of that dimmer chirping, slowly and occasionally dripping from the top branches of the bare cypresses. A few sparrows, surviving, God knows how, acid rains storms and the dogged searches of the WildWatch Squads.

The unusual sense of peace didn’t leave me until I entered the tree-lined avenue leading to Sector 2057. That was the place where my mother dwelled and that figure... 2057... that... still too painful to recollect... was the dreadful year of her death, fifteen years ago. Fifteen years... fifteen years have already elapsed ... time runs so fast even when you’re aware that some form of immortality is awaiting.

I walked with firm step, though slowly, among the tall towers that housed the Posthumous Pensions. 2048, 2049, 2050... Still seven blocks to go. The thought that was guiding me had grown in determination as I left behind me those constructions tinted of celestial shade. I was meaning to preserve the unusual calm the same way as it had set up inside me. I wasn’t feeling at all like resuming the old arguments with my mother.

Recently she had let herself be pervaded by absurd anxiety. She couldn’t help but tormenting me with strange obsessive ideas that had made our talks nearly impossible. She was unrecognizable. Nothing to do with the earliest days, when she found out that againium really worked, also on her, making her feel her existence again, despite the loss of her corporeal form.

Posthumous pension n. 2057, PHP 2057... I had finally arrived. I easily climbed the low steps, slippery with the yellowish slurry left by the recent heavy rains and got close to the psykorec intercom. Something, though, withheld my hand uncertain whether to press the button next to my mother’s name or eternally stand still. All my purposes to stay determined about my stands, not to let me be impressed or conditioned by anything she would say, quickly twirled in my mind. Then I raised my arm again and rang.

«Come up, dear. I was expecting you.» said the voice synthetized by the vibrowaves, while the plasma bluish fluid went up and down the tube in choking, deaf outbursts, and plops, while the psychic commutations took place.

The pneumatic elevator carried me to the seventh level in a fraction of a second. As soon as the cylindrical cubicle opened in the middle of the small atrium, I stepped out with unsteady and long strides. The plasma image of my mother was there waiting for me.

«You look wonderful, darling. Why don’t you get a chair?» For a moment the pulsating face seemed to wink towards the shielded seat, placed beyond the thick and transparent slab made of antitetral, that separated the Living ones from the Afterliving ones.

«Sure, mother... There we are... By the way... Everything fine with your againium ration? »

«Yes, son, all good, for the moment at least... » Her voice, though being a mere acoustic projection, had taken on that drawled tone that I could no longer stand.

«Mum, listen to me, please... I’d like to talk about something cheerful today. While, you know, I was coming here, nobody was around, and I even heard a sparrow sing... As you see, there are not only negative sides to reality...»

«I envy you, son, even if I would have no right to state that, as we blessed people shouldn’t be complaining at all. Even in this forlorn place we’re ceaselessly flooded with voice commutations coming from your world of living beings, but they all taste like stale recordings. Are you sure there are still free birds flying about? »

«Yes, mother. I sensed something good, something I’d long lost. Tell me, mum, you that are in contact with thousands of entities around here... is it possible you all have anticipated the beginning of a change...»

«Well, as for now only despicable rumours, honey. It’s been long like that. Maybe the birds aren’t but mind projections made up by the huge mass of Chaos that is attempting to get the better of the universe.  After all, why be surprised, the Latins