https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQDFK2JW
Chapter 2
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQDFK2JW
Chapter 1
«I will soon be
back, make yourselves at home, please» said the man going out. We looked at
each other, George and I. It had only been from the morning that we didn’t have
a chance to stay on our own.
«That’s a real story of madness! » he burst out taking a seat in one of the
four wood armchairs that were around a circular table in the center of the
small room. «This man must be crazy! Let's put him off as soon as is back and
let's escape from here, until we are in time», he added while I was taking a
seat in front of him.
«Just a moment, George, maybe it will seem strange to you, but I don't feel
afraid of this man! He inspires a sort of trust in me, despite his
strangeness».
«But do you realize what you are talking about? Have you gone out of sense too?
This man must have some extraordinary powers: hasn't he hypnotized us just
slightly before? Have you also heard him talk of super-races and brain's
experiments or have I dreamed of it?», George attacked me nervously.
«Be quiet, please, George», I told him in a calm voice. «First of all, I don't
believe he has hypnotized us, just before. Secondly, if he is really so
powerful as you say, what could be his reaction, when we try to immobilize him?
Make a point on it: when we arrived here, we were both sleepy. If
he wanted therefore to use us as guinea-pigs, two punctures were enough
for him to knock us down! I have not seen yet neither
cats resembling mice, nor men with a square brain!
Who can be sure that the old man is not
inventing everything? It would not surprise me if this story derived from the
imagination of some fantastical writer. I want to go to the end of all these
circumstances. Don’t you also want to know what kind of job's proposal Mr
Winningoes is going to make for us?»
George gazed for a long time into my eyes, thoughtfully. Then, without
answering, he relaxed on the back of the chair, releasing the muscles and
breathing deeply.
He stood with half open eyes crossing at once the feet and the hands softly on
the womb, with the right hand covering the palm of the left one. He seemed to
me almost slept, while only the breath animated his body. Won by all those
unexpected and subsequent emotions, I also imitated him doing my best on
sitting comfortably on the wood ancient chair.
...to be continued...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07JKFNCDG
Chapter 3
The entry was dark, but after closing the front door behind our shoulders,
we noticed, on the left, an open door, which filtered a weak light. After we
had gone through a poorly illuminated and narrow corridor, we turned into a
staircase. There was not any sign of life all around. At length we found, still
on the left, an open door and we leaned out to see.
" Come in, come in"
said a voice from behind a disclosed glasses’ door.
And before we could do or say anything, a thin face appeared on the
threshold and in a firmer and louder tone repeated:
"Come
in, at last!".
He soon showed us two chairs in front of his desk and started watching us
with questioning expression.
I also observed him with attention and curiosity.
He was the thinnest person I had ever seen in my life. You could rather say
that he was made but skin and bones. He had prominent cheekbones and also the
jaws, the temples and the front were very protruding.
If some incredibly brisk and extraordinarily green eyes had not filled his eyes
sockets, I might have also believed that he could really be made of skull and
crossbones.
But skulls and crossbones, usually, do not speak. Furthermore he wore some
suits which let him to look like a normal man.
"I
am Mr Winningoes. What can I do for you?" –he said as soon as we
had sat down.
" We are looking for a job" - George immediately said after a
brief pause.
" What kind of job are you looking
for?" said the man on his
way. Despite of the appearances, his voice sounded like a perfect job’s agency
employee.
"Everything will be all right" I dared, in my difficult
English, staring at George to ask confirmation of the agreement we had hastily
reached, not to speak at all of Mr Joking.
" Ah!" the man exclaimed "Let’s see, then."
With the thin finger he started pointing up the lines of some sheets leaned on
a skin braid on his front. He mumbled, rather than leaked, without any sense
and, from time to time, he fixed a careful look to one or the other of us and
after, shaking his head, he started over reading.
He had finally arrived to the last sheet, and rather seemed that the finger
already slipped from the sheet to the braid, and from this to the green glass
that covered the plan of the desk, when the old man pronounced with vivacity: - “Here you are! Two intelligent young people,
good health, bachelors and prepared to travel around, we are looking for easy
and pleasant job. Good conditions. No references are required."
to be continued...
Chapter 2
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1687004994
That London summer 1979 had exceptionally been long and mild (London
whether, at middle August, it is usually already cold). Such a whether allowed
me to make profitably the ice cream sale. We sold them to the passer-bys,
leaned out in the street with a freezing machine “Carpigiani” that, in the
evening, after the sale, we located inside a shop of souvenirs along the Oxford
Street. Working together had contributed to strengthen our knowledge and we
became so good friends.
Of George I appreciated the self-confidence that showed in the practical and
small things of everyday’s needs, as for instance knowing how to cook rather
than to be skilful in the use of English language. This assurance of his,
nevertheless, was oddly conjugated with his strenuous internal search that
seemed finalized to understand the deepest sense of our life on the earth. That
after all was the main reason which had pushed me in to London town.
These things I had realized through the great discourses that, alternate to long silences, we had along that time.
George was rather a reserved man, who didn't love very much to speak of
himself, at least not in direct and explicit manner. Neither he seemed very
interested to pick up the alien confidences.
He apparently gave the impression to have something to hide or have run
away from someone he needed to forget, in a city where also a celebrity would
pass unnoticed. But after a short time, I had realized that his silences, his
reservation, his misanthropy were together the fruit of a shyness and the
result of a reflexive and deep character, projected towards a spiritual search
that, absorbing big part of his energies, detached him from the material things
of daily life, except those strictly necessary for living through.
The search of an ideal world, through dimensions and experiences untied
from the normalcy and the usualness of everyday life, had been soon the point
of contact and more important welding in our relationship. Furthermore, apart
all this, I had found on him a disinterested support, without which my London
adventure would have soon ended up. Then the summer, suddenly ended, and slowly
but surely, also vanished the savings put aside in the ice cream season.
to be continued...
Chapter 1
George and I
I had known George, just in
the summer of 1979, in a little snack
bar, in the beginning of my London stay. A snack-cafe not so far from
Piccadilly Circus, where they made a slightly drinkable coffee. I used to go
there, because it was the only place where the coffee was served in the small,
classical, Italian cups, and even if it was served with no cream, it was still
better than that watered black soap that almost all barmen sell off for coffee
in England.
The snack-bar premises were in a large rectangular room. On the right of the entry there was the counter with the coffee-machine, while both on the left and the opposite wall, in front of the entry-door, there was a wood bench, lined in brown colored plastics and, straight above, lined in the identical way, a narrow shelf, plenty of sugar-bowls and ashtrays.
The left wall, for the whole length of the bench, beginning from the shelf and
finishing to the originally white-painted ceiling, was made of a thick
transparent glass that, giving brightness to the place, allowed the visitors to
enjoy a wide outside sight where, just in front, was well visible the entrance
of a theatre with an ample and luxurious atrium. It was there that George seemed to stare up his look, over the round
glasses (like John Lennon’s, I had thought).
His olive complexion, the chestnut hair and the
black moustaches didn't make him certainly look like a probable Queen‘s
subject, but I questioned him, this not less, in English. Also because, after
all we were in London. What other idiom was I supposed to speak?
He burst into laughter, hearing my question. Not immediately, but after turning his head to look at me, with a funny expression on his face, while with my hands I repeated my request for fire, rubbing, at the same time, my right forefinger on the palm of the left hand.
After lighting his own cigarette, as I stood close and steady, much more
interdict than angry, because of his crazy laughing, he told me in a strongly
stressed, though smooth, Italian language:
“Sorry for laughing, but Italian people do make notice of them, when they
speak English. You come from Rome, don’t you?” -, he suddenly added,
smiling with satisfaction to my sad, affirmative answer.
The place, beside the two of us and a girl sitting on the other side of the
bench, was empty. The barkeeper, behind the counter, was preparing a great copy
of sandwiches, with cheese and tomatoes, lettuce and meats and a few others
with all four ingredients together, according to the best English taste.
“And you, where do you come from?” - I asked him in some annoyed
tone for that reference to the Italian’s accent and particularly to that of the
Romans, whose noble descendants I am still proud to belong.
-” I am not Italian” - he answered to me with peaceful voice “but I have lived quite a lot of years in Italy. So I know your customs quite well, and also your accent” -, concluded laughing again tastefully.
This time his laughing, however, didn't upset me at all. Those few words had
been enough to make my anger fade away; or maybe I was just only glad to talk
to someone without squeezing my brain to translate my thoughts from Italian
into English language.
To recognize nationalities through the English speaking accents, was only one
of the so many eccentric aspects of George’s personality, as I had the
opportunity to discover thereafter.
But what struck me mostly among them, determining the consolidate of our
friendship, was his passion, shared by me, for the esoteric philosophies.
Actually ‘till then, I had reputed them exclusive knowledge of the eastern
cultures, while George, rightly in the period we met, was studying at one
(whose study he had to introduce me, later on), that he granted to the
Huichols, a direct descending people of the ancient pre-Colombian populations
that in the present state, according to what at that time he told me, were
still living in the north western mountains of Mexico.
...to be continued...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BYVJ67QW
The last moon
Act Unique in six scenes
in Sardinian Language
By Ignazio Salvatore
Basile
Translaction in to
English by the same author
General index
the last moon
drama in one act and six
scenes
pages 1-20
Structure and Framework
page 21
Description of the
Protagonists
page 22
The presentation of the
author: where does the idea come from?
page 24
Director's Notes
Page 26
Acknowledgments and
Contributions
page 27
Characters
Itzocar
Tribe’s Chief of Nure
Irìsa
His
Wife
Damasu
Son to Itzocar and Irìsa
Gula
Daughter to Itzocar and Irìsa
Alàshia
Sister to Gonario
Aristea
Daughter to king Gonario’s
Nakigia Gonario ‘s Widow
Rumisu
Nakigia’s Son –Throne’s pretender
Bithia
Nakigia’s Sister - Priestess of Nure
Iolao
Bithia’s Son
Anù
High Priest at Nure
Elki
Anù’s Son and Soldier’s Chief
Soldiers and People
King
Gonario
His Phantom
THE PLOT
On the tribe
of Nure reigns Itzocar, who rose in command twenty years before,
when his brother Gonario, suddenly died.
In so doing
Itzocar has however willfully ignored the rules regarding the succession
imposed by ancient tradition , who foresaw the Regency of Gonario’s
widow, Nakigia, at least until the grown age of his son Rumisu, still a child
at the time of death of the king Gonario.
Trying to
legitimize and strengthen the usurped power Itzocar and authoritative Anù,
Member of the Council of elders of Nure, combine a double marriage: Damasu,
designed by his father Itzocar to succeed him on the throne, will marry Aristea
(who is daughter to deceased King's sister, Alàshia), while Elki, son of
Anù will marry Gula (daughter of Itzocar).
But Nakigia, widow
to Gonario, who is contrary to weddings, invited to depose the gifts on
behalf of Anù, invites the nobles, priests and the people waiting for the
awakening of Bithia Priestess ( mother of Iolaus), who has been doing the rite
of incubation, waiting for a forseen dream, to refuse the wedding at
least until Bithia’s reveil.
Rumisu, son to deceased
King Gonario and to Nakigia , aims to remove Uncle Itzocar in the command ,
feeling empowered.
While Nakigia
exposes his call to wait, Bithia awakens and describes his dream of doom: a Sun
swallowed by the Moon(Song of Bitia).
Immediately
after bursts on the scene Rumisu accusing Uncle Itzocar to have usurped the
command (song of Rumisu).
At the end
of Rumisu’s song, Damasu enters in defense of his father Itzocar.
The two men fight
hand-to-hand.
The winner will be
Rumisu. The loser Damasu abandons the village.
Rumisu, ripped the
stick and the mantle from his uncle Itzocar, that will follow with his wife
Irìsa the defeated son, sits on the throne and invites Aristea to join him at
his side.
But Iolaus
and Aristea announce their love. And while the people and the guards, let the
two lovers pass by, sadly Rumisu will leave the scene defeated by his own lust
for power.
The ghost of King
Gonario appears to underline the right rules with the song of Akinta
Kamar.
When Gonario goes
out of scene, all the people will dance, celebrating the Last Moon, before the
sun takes over the power for ever.
FIRST SCENE
(the scene opens to the central square of the nuragic village of
Nure. In the background, a sacred well of nuragic period and in the
distance the towers of the village; the half moon shines in the
blue sky; a mixed group are dancing a nuragic appropriate dance of
good luck wishing at the double promise of marriage between Damasu and Aristea
and between Elki and Gula.
The choir will be singing the following air)
Come on, come on, lights from the sky
Come on, bright and pregnant
Come to the aiming water
Come on, come on, lights from the sky
Itzocar (standing up and beating the sheep’s stick for thrice, calling
for silence)
- People of Shardana!
Listen to me! I, Itzocar, King of Nure, today I promise by the present
announcement the wedding of my son Damasu with the nice princess
Aristea ((Aristea, will cover her face with the veil; later on this
sign, soon interpreted as shyness, will be revealed a gesture of
refusing !)
And when the Moon is sank in the sacred well, nobody will be
able to deny this promise I’m doing in front of you; I call everybody as
witnesses as I confirm the promise with the gifts that my wife
Irìsa will pose hereafter in the well;
Irìsa (she stands solemnly up and goes to put the presents by the sacred
well; then one ancill will give her a veil whom with she will tie one the
couples)
- You will be tied
together for all your life, in luckiness and sadness! For ever and ever!
Anù (leaving the priest’s assembly will repeat the same Itzocar’s words,
inviting Nakigia, being him a widower, to deal the bribes)
- And I, Anù, Mayor
between the Mayors of Nure, announcing and pronouncing the weddings
of my son Elki with the beloved king’s Itzocar daughter , the nice
Gula(he will stare at Gula who according to tradition will hide her
own face with the veil) and because I’m a widower it’s up to the first
Priestess Nakigia to present the gifts in front of the people!
Nakigia ( she will solemnly occupy the center stage, which will be
promptly released, but without taking any the gifts of Anù
and leaving drop off the veil brought to her for tieing the other couple ).
- Is not that the way
we used to present our weddings in the sacred well of Garlo in this country!
Not even for the ancient habits and not really while our priestess
Bithia is still consulting our Gods! (everybody will turn towards
the sacred tub of prediction where Bithia is staying, while the heads and the
priests shall lift buzz of discontent and protests; but the protest stops while
leaping from the sacred cavern from which Bithia, cataplexy, comes,
sustained by the vestals to occupy the center stage and
begins to sing)
to be continued...