The Prison

by Stefano Pastor

  Penelope ignored them. She looked at the vampire, chained to the ground, and again their eyes met. He suddenly stopped shaking around, and all his attention was bewitched on her.

  It was something different, never tried before. There was no hunger in his eyes nor disgust. Penelope was electrified. She got up and started to weave.

  She put all her love into it. The plea from the captives were in vain, Penelope created the most beautiful cobweb ever made. Filling up the entire cage, transforming it in a nest, her wedding nest.

  From the outside, they were looking at her, she could feel their eyes but she never looked. In the field everyone was in panic, running around screaming.

  Then a desperate voice arrived. “Penelope, what are you doing?”

  She continued to weave, without looking. Medusa shouted again: “What are you doing?”

  How could she explain it to her? She turned and looked at her. Santini was behind her trying to pull her away, but Medusa was fighting him.

  Penelope was supposed to be sad for her, but she couldn’t, that was the most beautiful day of her life, the night of her wedding.

  “Get away!” shouted Santini. “His nearly free! We don’t have much time!”

  It was already too late to do anything. They wouldn’t have been able to get into that cage, not after she blocked all entrance to it. There was no way to stop the vampire from freeing.

  The most courageous ones threw torches through the bars, with the hopes of burning it. But as soon as they got in contact with the humid and sticky silk they instantly turned off. There was no wood to connect to, in that cage, but only metal to encage that beast.

  The first caravans where already going, and the shouting grew. She saw Medusa being taken away, and Penelope forgot about them. Continued to weave.

  When her masterpiece was completed, only then, looked again towards the vampire. He followed her every move, he never lost her from his sight. Penelope knew that the moment arrived. She took her outfit off and left herself naked.

  Then she got on top of him and started to caress him. They body united, their mouths connected again. She found his tongue, it has a metallic flavour, like of blood, but Penelope didn’t mind. She felt him tense, his muscles tense up and heat up. Then one of the chains broke, with a silent sound, and then another one. The four prisoners started to scream.

  She felt his hands over her, exploring her body, then his arms grabbed her in a tight pose, nearly stopping her breathing. She allowed him, feeling protected. She left him take the initiative. She wanted that the first time was incredible, unforgettable.

  Their eyes meeting again, while their kiss became wild. It was different, it was exactly like she dreamt. Other chains broke, then he was completely free and he lifted her up.

  Penelope was now in his power, but she didn’t mind, because she never, not even for a moment, think of him as a monster. Only a beautiful boy, a prince charming. And it was like this for him too. He accepted her, maybe because he always knew she existed. Sometimes love could surpass any obstacle.

  For a minute, he looked away towards Hercules, who started screaming. The Vampire showed his teeth and emitted a rumble sound.

  Penelope grabbed his face with both hands and made him stare at her. Making their eyes meet again.

  “Later”, she said. “You can take care of them later. Just think of making me happy for now.”

  Silence surrounded them again, as if nobody was there. They felt protected in that nest, in the safe. Nobody could come to disturb them.

  When the Vampire penetrated her, Penelope grabbed round his neck. Then the movement started, and she planted her nails to his back, but he didn’t feel any pain. He never spoke in his life, but that night was different. Moaning followed their union and their voices joined as one, always getting louder.

  It became a scream, and when they orgasmed the scream became wild, as a victory. They weren’t celebrating their love, but they conquered freedom.

  The chains that always imprisoned them were gone forever.

  May 2010

  FOREVER

  Translation by Cinzia Albanese

  Paolo Provera died for the first time on the 22nd of January 1925. He lived a full and ingenious life, he got himself to the highest position and secured himself a relaxing retirement. Finally, he was free to dedicate his remaining life to his crazy projects and to the art he loved, poetry.

  He filled his entire home full of poems, writing directly on the walls, using every empty space available, to the point of wondering about his own insanity. Even his crazy technical and hydraulic projects, for which he had taken over Leonardo’s genius, never received recognition.

  That’s because Mr. Provera, although well appreciated for his intelligence, he was a simple man, but thanks to that profession he managed to set aside a good amount of money.

  When he died, he had just celebrated his seventy fifth birthday.

  He woke up three days later, nobody realised what happened.

  At first, he didn’t realise himself either, he walked downstairs, he made his breakfast, he complained about the sour milk and the mouldy bread. He complained to himself, obviously, as the good man lived alone. Since the death of his wife, no woman had ever lived in that house, even though he occasionally indulged in the pleasures with what he calls his girlfriends. But even that was lost during the years.

  An entire day had passed before he realised that he lost three days of his life.

  His memory had been more than reliable until that moment, and for Mr. Provera his intelligence was everything to him, and the fear, or little by little vanishing, frightened him. For what reason had he forgotten three whole days of his existence?

  The situation was worse than what he expected. He found out that no one has seen him for the missing three days. He did not do his daily shopping and he even missed his religious duties.

  What did he nourished himself with, seeing that nothing was missing from the house? Had he been away, if so, where? Nobody had seen him.

  With great shame, he consulted a specialist in the illnesses of the old people: a geriatrician. He already feared the worse sentencing: senile dementia. The doctor, however, very sorrowful and even embarrassed, told him something even worse.

  He was dying.

  His heart was in a horrible condition. So disastrous it seemed incredible that it was still beating. He gave him little hopes of being able to participate in the Easter Mass.

  The poor Mr. Provera walked away destroyed, he closed himself in his house and forgot about the enigma behind the three missing days, he had more serious problems in hand.

  He lived like a recluse, counting the days and the hours, he even counted the minutes that separated him from oblivion.

  The doctor failed his diagnosis: Mr. Provera died for the second time on the 15th of April 1925, three days after the Easter celebrations.

  It happened in his bed, the place where he stayed for days, terrorised by what he now considered a prophecy.

  He returned to life three days later, feeling rested and with more energy than usual. When he went downstairs to get his breakfast he found again his bread moulded and his milk sour. He remained a bit uncertain before asking around. He did it with all the precaution and managed to conceal his surprise when he found out he had lost another three days of his life

  Even then, he could not understand what really happened. He asked to be hospitalized, for the first time in his life, and was subject to all sorts of examinations.

  This time, there were four luminaries who came to give him the bad news: he was dying, his body was really broken. The heart was losing beats and could stop at any moment, his liver was destroyed, he had a tumour in the bowel and they also noticed some spots in the lungs.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done, he will die very soon.

  Mr. Provera had to fight to be released, as all the doctors knew he will not be able to look after himself. In the end, he got so desperate to the poi
nt they let him go, and that was the last time he set foot in a hospital.

  Soon things changed. By now Mr. Provera had accepted the inevitable and found it absurd to wait for the last days. He managed to go out, he wrote, and studied his crazy machinery projects. Tried to forget his inevitable end and live those last days to the maximum of his possibilities.

  Mr Provera died for the third time in fall, perhaps on the 21st or the 22nd of October 1925. It was never clear as they were times too busy to look at the calendar.

  This time he didn’t happen in his bed. In that moment Mr. Provera was on the sealing of his bedroom, engaged in the task of flying a strange wooden bird that he built himself.

  He simply sank, as if a button had been switched off, and he remained like this for three long days. Days when it rained, and his body was subject to the mood of the weather. Three days where, once again, nobody realised of his disappearance.

  When he came back to life he was dishevelled, frozen and stiff. He saw how his clothes were wet and crumpled, his shoes irreparably ruined. The wallet he had in his pocket immersed in water, and the notes were all glued together.

  This time he realized that in the moments of amnesia, his mind is not there. He did not go anywhere, but stood the in the same spot. It was absurd, but Mr. Provera’s mind was analytical and open to every discovery.

  He reasoned for a long time about what was happening to him. He evaluated the possibility of asking help from someone but discarded it. It was necessary to find out what happened to him in those missing days, so as a man of science he fitted out. He struggled to get one of those modern devil things called cameras and created a complicated hydraulic mechanism to turn the wheel, so it stays rolling all the time. He bought big quantities of films. And he used all of them in the attempt to film his own departure.

  He succeeded: Mr. Provera died for the fourth time in February 1926, precisely on the 9th of February. The camera was on for a while, so in the end what he obtained was only twenty minutes of the death.

  Death, yes, because looking at them this time there was no doubt. His heart had stopped, he had squandered to the ground, shivering, and a moment later he was dead. For twenty minutes, his body remained motionless, without breathing, and Mr. Provera has no doubt that this immobility would continue for the next three days.

  For what reason he had come back to life, he had no way of knowing. But now he could understand why there was the memory voids, and this left him puzzled. More, euphoric.

  Mr. Provera could not die.

  In just one second all the fears disappeared, a great feeling of peace had fallen into his soul, the future was no longer frightening. He did not care what had caused this medical miracle, but he was only interested in the results.

  He exalted, convinced he was immortal.

  One year passed, and the attacks became more frequent. At the beginning of 1927 Mr. Provera had already died a beautiful sixteen times and was very experienced in both physic and spirit. It fell on him an infinite tiredness.

  The few moments of tranquillity that comes after each rebirth were shorter, his body was weaker and sick, he struggled to concentrate, he stopped writing and even more he stopped experimenting. He only wanted to rest.

  The physical damage extended over his body and with it, pain. Death often took him from his bed as he was less likely to get up.

  It was during this period that his obsession was born.

  And if someone, in a good day, had found him in those conditions and, thinking he was dead as it was, had he be buried? He became more misanthropic, closed the door of his home to everyone and he began to get out more and more rarely, just to get food. He barricaded himself at home.

  One day, he had already lost count of how many times he had died, in autumn of 1927, a bizarre idea appears in Mr. Provera’s mind.

  He had to prepare his tomb.

  Since death for him would not have been the eternal sleep that was so intimidating to other humans, it was important that the place where, this supposed eternity, was spent comfortable. One thing he was clear: Soon, very soon, his body won’t be able to move nor be seen by anyone.

  He was deteriorating, it was a continuous progressive deterioration, and even though life refused to abandon him, it would be the same when reaching to the tomb.

  He put a lot of care in building it, designed it with the smallest details and ordered to be done. The funeral chapel was so big and full of wonders that everyone was amazed and vegan to say that he was building a monument to himself.

  Mr. Provera did not care about these tales. He gathered in the chapel the remains of those he had loved, of friends and relatives, and sculpted their faces, to have them always alongside him. On the tombstones, he wrote his best poems, and adorned the walls with friezes and ornaments. He made the most beautiful tomb he had ever seen.

  Mr. Provera’s fear was that he could not finish it in time, with the risk of being discovered dead and inhumed in the cold earth. That is why his paranoia grew and covered the doors with chains and padlocks, so it was impossible to get into his home.

  The years passed by, one, two, he found himself at the threshold of 1930, and even if physically he was only eighty, his soul seemed to have already been a thousand years old. How many times has he died already? He could not have been able to say. Now his body was so debilitated that he rarely got up from the bed, and the deaths happened faster and faster, a few days apart. The risk was getting worse.

  Even his certainty of immortality had severely cracked. Soon the moment would come that the conscious part of his existence would have been less than the death periods. And if they had been shortened, as was expected to happen, in a good day he would not have been able to wake up. The thing is, deep down, he wasn’t scared anymore. His life, how it became, did not deserve to be lived.

  His fear had become a different one.

  What would his life have been, waiting for oblivion, locked in a coffin? Because that is how it was, despite the beauties of his chapel, he would have had no way of enjoying it when he was dead.

  It was there that the idea made him famous in the years to come. It did not have to be buried.

  He built a large concrete chair, similar to a throne, where he could accommodate, and created a chain system that would keep him locked, preventing him from changing position. He tried it for a long time, to be sure it was perfect. Only then did he declare to everyone that he wanted to be buried like that.

  He could not see any other way: The chains would always keep his body right, even during death, and he would have been allowed to enjoy the sight of what was dear to him in wakefulness.

  He made sure this decision was enforced, and then Mr. Provera gave the date of his death to the small number of friends and family that remained. He specifically asked to be transferred to the chapel together with the unusual coffin he had chosen and to be locked up.

  He did not have a choice but to be sure that his wish was fulfilled, to find himself dead chained to that stone chair, and that the chains were so welded together that he could not be removed. Only then he had hope and they had to content him.

  On the 12th of April 1930 Mr. Provera lit a charcoal burner to warm himself up and sat for the last time in the chair. He fixed the chains as close as possible, and then set out to wait. Death would not take long, seen as he visited him more and more frequently. He was not in a hurry, he was willing to wait.

  That was how he was found in the morning of the 14th of April, and it was noticed that death arrived. Since the causes were certainly natural, despite the unusual place where it had been found, the death certificates were signed. Everyone was astonished at the foresight he had.

  At dawn the following day the funeral took place. The coffin was loaded onto a chariot and carried to the chapel. It was located right where he had pointed, in the exact centre, surrounded by the sculpted loved ones.

  It was a bizarre choice, which left everyone in embarrassment since never a deceased body was left o
n plain sight. For this they were quick to complete the ceremony and closed the chapel.

  Mr. Provera got back to live at sunset. He felt joy when he saw the place where he was, and he knew he had made the right choice. It was almost a pleasure not to be forced to move, nor to nourish. He loved that peace and company. He let himself be get consumed by the silence and slept in that quiet room. He did not even die until a day later.

  And since then he has died, died, died and has endowed an infinite number of times. Even today, looking inside the chapel, you can be surprised to see the state of conservation of his body, similar to a mummy yet unbroken, how can people laugh at the foolish rumours when so many have seen that mummy move over the years.

  And if one had enough time to lose and was willing to observe it for days and days, he might even notice a flicker of imperceptible life in that body, a lash of eyebrows, or a sigh. But you should be careful to perceive it, because it would take only a moment.

  February 2011

  TARTAN

  Translation by Cinzia Albanese

  When Terence died, they found a treasure in his house. They even resurrected me, after years in the darkness. The drawing that depicted me were put into famous museums and were part of the highly exclusive private collections, but I didn’t exist anymore. I wasn’t that.

  At thirty-five, with a hint of bacon and a peeling principle I didn’t have anything from that beautiful guy that he painted, shaking the whole world. I myself had removed those seven years of my existence, as if they had never existed. I kept modelling, but in different roles. They no longer called me for underwear services, but as the father of the family. I was, in the end, Anna is expecting for our second son.

  For years, I was the mystery that had everyone fascinated: if I was or less Terence’s lover. I’ve always refused to talk about it. The strange relationship that united us was too personal.