Hanging In A Jar

The neighbour's children are gone. Once, he burned down the house next door. After that, they were taken and hidden away with their mother, a few hundred kilometres away. She was no longer permitted to enter the village.  They're a few years older now and have been back for a week or so. The young boys swing from the apple tree and steal the village flowers. The parents welcome visitors who, upon arrival, blast their car horns and shout. They laugh and sing karaoke late into the night. The village chat is endless, disapproving. I can say more about these lives now than my own. Muted, but I can't help it.  "The other day he showed them his gun!" I almost envy their summer. I see glimpses of freedom and magic in some future memory that is not my own.  A quiet descends. Other noises have taken their place. A constant dripping. It's a clicking. Beetles gnaw and tunnel their way through the wood of my treehouse. Click, click, click. The wood is riddled with holes a...

Mum calls the day before the holiday. Unfortunately, she's watched the news. "You're not going to Etna are you?"   I told her the truth. "No! No. We're going to Naples and then we'll get a ferry to an island."  The news in the UK did not mention the name of my island. The news in Italy did.  She did not ask me the name of my island. I did not tell her the name of my island.  Later, an unholy rumble - a roar - the sound of the earth being torn open. The sensation of a slow moving monster looming above, like the stop motion creations of Ray Harryhausen come real. Warning sirens. A thick black cloud rises to the heavens, blocking out the sun, and spreads like treacle across the clear blue sky.  We watch the street as people rush inside. The carabinieri look like actors, rushing down to clear the tiny, rocky cove of people. They reappear, sweating in their berets and padded jackets. What a chore! Ten minutes pass and a older man appears squinting and sw...