Chapter Text
The doctor said it was time to talk to myself. With Doppio.
I want to record my memories in a place where He can't ruin them. As long as my consciousness persists, I will take my favorite memories by your side, and collect them in this journal, this long letter to you, Risotto. He has been sleeping for several weeks now, but when he wakes up, in a few days, a few hours, a second, he won't be happy.
Since we arrived on this island, I have avoided opening the blank notebook that I packed with me, along with my medications and my camera; but the afternoon has begun to cool as the sun sets behind those silent mountains. And we aren't doing anything more than sitting in the corridor to watch the clouds.
It was your idea to come here. I'm sure that the number of sheep outnumbers the villagers of this island where time doesn't seem to exist. It looks like your home in Sicily, it looks like mine in Sardinia. Being here is like regaining a part of the innocence that we have lost. It's like being someone else. Like being someone with a future.
I watch you swing on the hammock, which hangs in the corridor of this little house that has been our home these days. Your skin smells like the sun and the sea. The elastic of your shorts slides down your hips, and I can see the tan line that, as the days go by, intensifies after our daily walks to the beach.
You are silent. You seem sleepy, but I know you don't like to fall asleep before me. You are afraid that He will take me away while you sleep. Do you think I don't know that in the morning you wake up agitated when you don't feel me by your side? Despite this, there is peace on your face, the one that you deserve. The peace that I can't give you.
You swing closer to me, away from me, with one hand on my knee you regain the momentum to keep rocking yourself on the hammock. In a moment you turn to look at me, I see a little curiosity in your eyes. What takes me so long to write down? You can't know. Not yet.
I stick my tongue out at you.
"What's your problem? You wanna fight, big guy?"
"The mosquitoes are feasting on you" you say, rubbing a mosquito bite on my leg with your thumb.
"It has always been like this. I'm a delicacy to them."
"Do you want to go back inside?"
I like your voice hoarse with fatigue. I stay with you.
A tractor passed by on the stone road. The driver greeted us with a whistle. Nobody here knows us. Here we are two people who still have hope. I waved my hand at him, you just let it pass, waiting for the silence of the sunset to return. You become a silhouette. The sun is dying, but I would recognize your aquiline profile even in the blackest darkness…
I'm writing this a while later. Now you sleep peacefully next to me. You breathe slowly, your naked body caressed by the breeze from the turned-on fan. Asleep, the lines on your face soften to the point that you do look your age. You are young, beautiful, smart. You deserve so much, everything. My God, you are too good for me.
I closed the journal when the night finally fell over us, and I walked beside the hammock.
"Can you make room for me?"
I don't know what face you made.
"I don't think the hammock can support our weight."
I ignored this warning, laying on top of you and snuggled into your chest. The sounds of the night woke up. The distant barking of dogs in the village and crickets joined our synchronized breathing. You are the most stubborn person I know. I wouldn't waste time trying to fix myself. It's not going to work, I've told you hundreds of times. We always argue about the same thing, we always end up sobbing like children. And yet we always try again.
This afternoon I loved you so much that my eyes filled with tears, and you did nothing more than hold me against your body, willing to never let me go, even if your life could get lost in it.
Suddenly, we were on the ground, tangled in the fabric of the hammock. We laughed until our stomachs hurt.
"I told you It wasn't going to put up with our weight" you told me still laughing.
"Thank you, Ris."
"For what?"
"For softening my fall."