Emmanuele Massimi
This is where my bio should be, but alas, is not.
Emmanuele Massimi
This is where my bio should be, but alas, is not.
This is where my bio should be, but alas, is not.
This is where my bio should be, but alas, is not.
He could always see the faint starlit halo when he closed his eyes. It was like a streak of silver linings marking the colour of his destiny. Light blue on silver blue. He knew every time that his life made sense or that it would surely make sense, as if the vaults of his eyelids were etched with the map of his fate. They reflected the deep pools of his soul into which he could simply let himself go and be carried by the tide of infinite space and time: a soul has no temporal coordinates, not a beginning, not an end.
The horses in the stable went wild; they knew of the coming storm. They were pacing nervously at first, but soon enough they started rearing up and neighing vigorously. There was something in the air as dusk drew near. You could almost smell it in the acrid scent of the earth and the grass. But no one was paying attention to the stables or to the horses. The house was alight with joy and comfort this New Year’s Eve, people enjoying each other’s company and food, the chit-chat echoing the clinking and tinkling of cutlery and plates. But none of this could placate Jessie’s strange sense of uneasiness, as she stared helplessly at the last specks of red streaking the horizon, elbows on the porch railing. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she knew something was amiss. Darkness was fast approaching and she felt a sudden sense of dread as gust of chilly wind messed her long black hair. “Jessie! There you are! Come back inside, the karaoke is about to start!” “Yesssss mom, but I will record you and dad this time, no excuses!” “We’ll see, we’ll see…” As she turned around to close the door, she glanced at the sky again; it was dark just enough now for the realisation to sink deep: somehow, she knew that this last day of the year was going to be the last day she would spend with her family.
Back home after another sleepless night at the A&E. Of course I was classified blue. By the time they saw me, the morning sun was coming in almost perpendicularly. Everything is fine, apparently, I must be imagining my excruciating leg pain. Next time, I might as well suffer sleeplessly at home than on some squalid plastic chair in a drafty room. Horizontal vs vertical agony.
Another week of nonstop torment. My leg won’t let me rest, it’s all I can think about, day and night. But especially at night. Doctor says it should settle soon, as he can find nothing wrong with it. Small victory: I was prescribed physiotherapy. I wish I could go today, but guess what, I need to wait one week for my first appointment.
My leg is now a throbbing rod of lead. I need to drag it across the floor, which of course amplifies the pain and extends it over a longer period of unsteady steps. The physiotherapist has twisted my leg in all sort of ways, and said that despite my visible discomfort, my joints look very healthy. I feel like I should congratulate myself for such healthy physique. But I’m still aching really badly, so one for another day.
I was assigned a bunch of physio exercises to “ease the discomfort”. If anything, and if you can believe it, my pain has gotten worse. In the past few days, I’ve noticed — unless my hollowed eyes are also failing me — that it’s acquired a slightly purple tinge. Time for a dermatologist appointment.
I think I might need to get my eyes checked, after all. The dermatologist said both my legs look absolutely fine. She can’t see any colour differences between them, and said they both have a very healthy hue. That’s quite reassuring, but I’m also pretty sure my left leg is getting purpler by the day. I was given some hydrating cream to help ease my alleged pain.
Totally non consequential, but I also made a point of getting my eyes checked. My vision is 20/20 on both eyes. I’m the picture of health.
After my nth visit to my physiotherapist, I was advised on the challenges of chronic pain, that is, how the brain can trick us into feeling pain even when there are no physical symptoms. In the meantime he didn’t seem to want to acknowledge the fact that my left leg is now dark purple. I brought my eye test results with me, but he didn’t want to see them either. I think it’s time to sign up to a mindfulness meditation course.
Turns out, it’s quite hard to learn how to be mindful when one of your leg is dynamite. Observe your pain, they say, but it feels more like I’m a speck of dust slowly coasting the mouth of the event horizon of a reality-eating agony. This sounds way cooler than it is, by the way. Either way, I believe I’ve reached enlightenment: I will pay for private healthcare.
My private GP seems to have acknowledged that my leg is now almost black. By “acknowledged” I mean that he didn’t tergiversate, immediately change topic, or leave the room. Nope, I’m the proud owner of my very first prescription: paracetamol.
It looks like there is such thing as death by paracetamol overdose. Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention that I’ve been actually dead all along. But things have turned out well after all: my leg pain is gone, in fact, I no longer have a leg, or a body. But I feel so healthy.
An eye for an eye was never so literal. You should have seen the two of them, newly-made cyclops, eye-gulping, face-eating creatures made of the stuff of nightmares, licking at their blood-stained teeth, in a dance of agony and bliss. A hand for a hand, yes, a wry symmetry the driving force of their mutual demise. You should have heard the cheers of the crowd of spectators: horrified, galvanised, bloodthirsty as the two mutilated bodies rolled in a pool of gore, tarmac, and mud. Nobody knew what had started it, and it didn’t matter, the show was on. But not a peep came from their gnawing jaws. A medieval-grade extravaganza that was all the more sinister with the methodical silence of these writhing men. Or what was left of them. Not much by the end of it.
I make a point of staring straight into my own eyes, behind which I believe to be their eyes. It seems like a weird time for such a big reveal, but I’ve always counted on the element of surprise. Before they can recover from the shock, I pick up the little rubbish bin next to the toilet and I smash it against the mirror. Tiny versions of me fly all the way across the floor. The bin has broken through the mirror, of course, and it’s lying in a dark room behind my very own bathroom. I’m hit by a profound sense of violation: I’m possessed by a violence I don’t recognise as I scramble across the sink and into the dark room. There’s nobody here. Except… I turn around and the hole where the back of the mirror used to be is closing behind me. By the time I can do anything I’m trapped. I see through the back of the mirror the spitting image of me mouthing these words as she stares straight into my eyes: “I know you’re watching me”.
The sun grew weary of seeing men squander its light. It grew weary of seeing women squandering its light. And everyone in-between. The sun didn’t particularly see gender anyway. To be quite fair, the sun didn’t have eyes, of course, however, figuratively speaking, it felt quite upset at the way he perceived the lack of productive time on planet Earth during its all-day shift. The sun, you see, thought quite highly of itself, and could not stand the sight (figuratively speaking) of people not basking productively enough in its generous electromagnetic waves. Despite what was initially said about the sun and gender identity, in fact, it is quite a turn of events to learn that the sun wasn’t a particularly tolerant type. One could say, however, that the sun’s intolerance was indiscriminate, which, if you think about it, makes things better and worse at the same time. It’s for this reason that unfortunately, the sun’s displeasure was felt on people’s skins without exception, even by the 4am-club sort. It should not be hard then to imagine how much wearier the sun grew of sunscreen, especially when applied to the skin of sunbathing humans. It is quite ironical, all things considered, that humans have regarded sunbathing as one of the best ways to enjoy these precious electromagnetic waves…