The Dreamer

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CQDFK2JW

Chapter 2

In order to relax I recalled the preceding events, starting from the moment I had firstly met my friend George.

I had known him early in the summer 1979, in a little snack bar of the centre, 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, was still better than that watered black soap that almost all barmen sell off for coffee in England.

The bar was housed 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 plastics of brown color, and, straight above, lined in the identical way, a same long but narrower 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, it 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.

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 be continued...

 

 

 

 

The Dreamer

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CQDFK2JW

First Part

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.

 

 

Traveling in spacetime with Virgil

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTCCPJTQ

 Traveling in  space-time with Virgil

A drama in a prologue, three acts and forty four scenes

by ignazio salvatore basile

 

 

Characters

Virgil:  a Latin dead poet

Dante: an   Italian poet still alive

Men from  Hell

Tommaso Cosimo Caccini,   Lodovico delle Colombe, Niccolò Lorini,

Claudio Acquaviva, Benedetto Mandina , Jacopo Aldobrandini

e don Pedro de Vera: Judges  Inquisitors of the Holy Inquisition in the Galileo’s Trial

Witnesses and Guards at Galileo’s trial

Alberto Tragagliolo: a timeless Florentine

Five Devils of Loudun

Sneezy, Freezy; Slippy, Drippy, Nippy,Showery, Flowery, Wheezy,

Bowery; Hoppy, Croppy, Poppy: Dwarves of French revolution;

James Morton and Lord Digheels: two damned from hell

 

Ferdinand Walsin Esterhàzi, Eduard Drumont, Major du Platy de Clam

and General Mercier and Alphonse Bertillon damned in the Devil’s Island

 

Harold Frederick Shipman,  Irving Roy Cohn, Censors and Gunmen: Sinners from the Great Circle

 

Reverend Jones Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr, Jim MCelvane, Judy IJames

 and  Joyce Touchette: People of the Temple

 

David Berg Karen Zerby and Kathleen Maddox: other guests in the Hell

Ealk : Great Beast, guardian of the Ante Hell

Waitress

Eleanor of Sardinia and  Brancaleone Doria: good people from Purgatory

T.C.B., J.L., J.H., J.M., J.B., B.M.,S.B., B.J., M.D., E.P.,J.R.

and  L.H. : guitar players and other musicians from Purgatory

Angels from Paradise

Beatrice: a beautiful celestial lady.

 

 

Prologue

Somewhere in the space  the Latin poet Virgil and the Italian poet Dante meet again, after almost seven hundred years, for starting a new journey on the universe of human vices and virtues.

Virgil will lead Dante Alighieri, as a guide, across the space-time, through as many different  levels of the human vices, as many centuries have passed by from their first journey.

They will travel  together  through the hell of  desperation up to the hope of repentance of purgatory. At the third level Dante eventually meets Beatrice who will lead him to the true love shore of Paradise.

Scene 1

Dante and Virgil

An aseptic room. On the left a door communicates outside. On the right a spiral staircase leads upside where the spaceship awaits for Virgil and Dante to go. In a total darkness the creak of an opening door. Dante will desperately call for his master Virgil.

 

Dante (a frightened voice in the darkness): May I come in? Is anyone there…? Schoolmaster!!! Are you there? Please answer me… for God’s sake…

(After a short but heavy silence’s time, a scrubbing sound of a lighting match will be heard in the darkness. Then a candle will light an old man sit down at a table covered by piles of books, papers and maps.

Virgil (after reawakening,  he lights the candle ): I must have fallen asleep…Who is in there???

Dante (still trembling): Is it you, master?

Virgil: (going to meet Dante, hardly recognizes his friend, lighting his face) Dante…? My son!!! Why are you so shattered and distraught??? What happened to you???

Dante (getting closer to his master, almost crying in a mixture  of joy and relief ) Oh, Virgil, masterly teacher of my trembling soul… if you only knew what I have gone through…

Virgil (placing his candle on the table, embracing him with protective affection): It’s all right now, my son…

Dante (falling on his arms, starts crying and sobbing): It has been really very hard outside there, in the darkness… I saw death in the face…

Virgil (l.b.): Please, take a sit, my son… It’s all over now…

Dante(reacquiring some trust): Thanks to God I’m with you now…

Virgil (l.b. pouring a glass of water from a jar on the table) Of course… It will be all right now… Please have some water…

Dante (drinking with desire the water): I have escaped three horrible beasts…

Virgil: Have you?

Dante (trembling again and looking afraid at the door): Yes… A tiger, a serpent and a monkey persecuted me up to here…

Virgil: Be calm now… they can’t surely get inside here…

Dante (reassured he looks gratefully at Virgil): I know they can’t my sweet master…

Virgil (with a gesture of affection): Forget about everything now…Are you still determined to take over our journey?

Dante (with a sigh of relief): More than ever master! With you by my side I can face anything fearless!!!

Virgil: (pointing out the spiral staircase)  Don’t you fear to face a long and risky journey  through the Universe with that spaceship?

Dante: Not at all, master!!! I told you: I’m ready to go anywhere with you by my side!!!

Virgil (taking a map on his hands): Let’s talk about it then! Everything is ready… I’ll show you…Do you know what is this?

Dante (bending on the map): Well … I see two cones turned upside down …

Virgil: Come on! It’s an astronomic figure!!!

Dante: I’m sorry…It might be a double cone diagram …

Virgil: That’s better. The bottom cone  represents the past and the  light cone, instead, is future! The point where the apices meet is the present; so we are here now , can you see it?

Dante (pointing the map): Yes master, I surely can! But what is this kind of spiral down here ?

Virgil: The Great Spiral contains all the human’s history, since our brain can retain trace of it…Every concentric circle corresponds to a century time… the inner you go to the center, the nearer you get closer to our ancestral roots, do you get me?

Dante (with a thrill of excitement): That’s makes me feel a bit lost…It’s all so stately… so magnificent…

Virgil: Of course it is! We are talking about the space-time…That’s what the spiral really represents…

Dante (like lost in the clouds): That’s would be fantastic…

Virgil (preventing and reassuring him ): It’s out of our route to travel the warped direction… we’ll walk  the expanding  direction instead…  with our spaceship we’ll intersect the space time right here (he points up with a finger the map)… at the beginning of the fourteenth century and from there we’ll continue towards the present;

Dante (surprised and excited): But that’s the anniversary of my exile  from Florence!!!

Virgil (with an accomplishing smile): Of course! Right the 1302… Don’t you want to know what happened after your left the town???

Dante (enthusiastically): So I’ll be able to see my beloved wife???

Virgil (beating him dear on his head): Have you forgotten we are going to visit the Hell??? You’ll see her in Paradise!!! Or at least in the Purgatory realms…

Dante (disappointed but thoughtful): I’m sorry master… I didn’t forget it but for a while  I thought it might me a sort of passageway in the way to hell… ‘you know?

Virgil: Not at all, my son. Look! All along the spiral’s arms we’ll find the different circles of Hell; in its last part we’ll be in the so called Ante Hell; but here (he points  the map again), where the final part of the spiral almost touches the present’s point we’ll aim the peaks of Purgatory…

Dante (with lively curiosity): so I may argue that the Hell is in the same dimension of past life?

Virgil (complying with satisfaction): That’s right my dear learner. As a matter of fact the right established punishment for the sinners is to stay in the unhappy condition of human life forever, without evolving in a better life like we’ll see for the Purgatory and, above all, for the praised of Paradise!

Dante: I see…

Virgil: Don’t be disappointed. Can’t  you imagine a worse punishment than sharing your own time only with the evil without any good at all?

Dante (positively thoughtful): Of course you’re right…

Virgil: Put it this way: you’ll be able to see your enemies… those who exiled you… lost forever in their thirst of power, in the vacuity of  their nothingness… and those who betrayed you…

Dante: I’m not sure to want such a revenge…

Virgil: That goes to your praise and merit…Aren’t you curious about the destiny of the big priest Boniface? Charles landless Valois? And what about Raniero Zaccaria?

Dante: (sadly) I would prefer to forget them!

Virgil: You don’t have to stop forcedly with them…We can decide the first stop   in advance by the on board controls…

Dante: Do you mean we can land anywhere in the spiral lines of space-time?

Virgil: That’s exactly what I mean!

Dante: I fear to face events too close to my own story…

Virgil: There’s no problem, my son. We can go straight way to any of the circles of any century!!!

Dante : As far as I know something about some good guys I could really go further..Can I know only a few names before we go?

Virgil: Go ahead with the names please!

Dante: (thirstily) Giovanni Boccaccio,  Cino da Pistoia, Pieraccio Tebaldi, Bosone da Gubbio, Geoffrey Chaucer, Johannes Gutenberg  and his  pupil  Johann Numeister!

Virgil: You’ll find them all in the Purgatory or maybe  in the eternal joy of Paradise!

Dante (with a sigh of relief): I think they deserve it, don’t you master?

Virgil: It’s not up to me to decide, not even to discuss such matters…

Dante: I’m sorry master…

Virgil (overflying any argument): Have you got any other name?

Dante: Can you just tell me something about a certain Francesco, the son of my friend, the notary Ser Petracco?

Virgil: Despite everything he has deserved to play another chance to reach Paradise..at least for literary merits… Don’t you think so?

Dante (bewildered, pedantly listing ): Well, I surely prefer  Rinaldo Cavalchini, Menghino Mezzani, Manuello Romano, Giovanni Quirini, Angelo Poliziano, Luigi Pulci, Lorenzo di Pietro, Giovanni di Paolo, Cristoforo Landino, Franco Sacchetti, Leonardo Bruni, Francesco da Barberino and …

Virgil: (cutting him straight) That’s ok, my son! I have got your point of view!!! May be you would like to make our first  stop further in the fifteenth or in the sixteenth century…

Dante (changing attitude, almost apologizing): Oh, the sixteenth  is my favorite one..so full of art…discoveries…new ideas…

Virgil: I’m with you… you can start from there our journey… if you want to…

Dante: Well, it depends from the people we might find over there…in the lines of the infernal spiral I mean…

Virgil: You can make some names, if you want…

Dante: I have a great number in mind…

Virgil: Make ten of them… just to start…

Dante: Let me see… I would start with… Martin Luther,  Nicolaus Copernicus, Leonardo Da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo Buonarroti, William Barker, John Calvin, Sandro Botticcelli, Tintoretto, Luca Marenzio…

Virgil: All in Paradise!!!

Dante: That’s good!!!

Virgil: Any more names?

Dante: Oh, I’ve a great copy… Why don’t you tell me,  master, some names worth to be heard? I would be so grateful…

Virgil: (surprised): Well, there are really plenty. What do you think of Hernan Cortes?

Dante: Do you mean the Spanish conquistador?

Virgil: That’s him, my son…

Dante (a bit upset): Speaking  about Spanish people I would prefer to talk with Diego Guillén de Avila,  Pedro Fernandes de Villegas or with Pedro de Padilla, ‘you see?

Virgil: Well, of course I see, but they are all guys of Paradise…

Dante (quite mortified): I’m really sorry, master…

Virgil (with resolution): Never mind! Do you have any  other names?

Dante: if I were assured about some other figures I would ask you to start straight to the beginning of the seventeenth century…

Virgil: Whom would you like to know of?

Dante: Raffaello Sanzio, Giorgio Vasari, Sir Francis Drake, Amerigo Vespucci, Giovanni Bellini, Adriano Bancheri, Anne Boleyn, John Calvin, Catherine de Medici, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles the Fifth, Nostradamus, Ivan the Terrible, GianPierLuigi da Palestrina, Michel de Montaigne…

Virgil: All of them out of the Great Spiral except for Francis Drake, Nostradamus  and Ivan the Terrible!!!

Dante: (very thoughtful) I’m in two minds… I’m not sure I want to stop just for three names…May I ask for any others?

Virgil: Come on with your last names then!!!

Dante (in one breath): Oliver Cromwell, Johannes Keplero, William Shakespeare,  Cervantes, John Donne, Francis Bacon, Renè Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Walter Releigh, Mazarino and Richelieu…

Virgil: Only Richelieu and Mazarino have got trapped on the Infernal spiral! But all these names lead us straight to the seventeenth century!!!!

Dante: Very well! I’m ready for the 17^th century now!!!

Virgil: Let’s go then!!!

(while they go towards to the staircase which leads to the spaceship the lights will be off)

 

 

 

 

 

Traveling in spacetime with Virgil - 13

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071FB9SGV

Second Scene

(the above said; Eleanor of Sardinia; his husband Brancaleone Doria )

As they come in there is a man playing launeddas, while a mature, nice woman is wearing  some coral pendants  earrings; the two people are dressed in Sardinian traditional suits and are very fashion. The furnishings are very simple: a mirror, four wooden chairs, a table, a stool, a cupboard. In the middle of the table some flowers and a faience jar of wine.

 

Eleanor (still looking herself in the mirror trying to fix the earrings) Come in!

Virgil: May we come in please?

Eleanor (like before): Of course you can! Come in and take a sit! I’ll be with you in a minute!!!

Virgil: Thank you madam!!!

(they seat around the table while the boys keeps on playing; after a short time Eleanor seats down with them)

Eleanor (while sitting): What wind of fortune brings you here? You look as foreigners to my eyes!

Virgil: You’re not wrong madam! We’re travelers and we come from very far!

Eleanor: Welcome to my house! Where are you from? There’s something familiar on you two but I can’t say more…May I ask your names?

Virgil: My name is Publius Vergilius Maro!

Eleanor: That’s why your acquaintance was so familiar to me…I’m honored to have in my house divine Virgil. What about your silent friend?

Virgil: His name is Durante Alighiero degli Alighieri…

Dante (shyly): Please, call me Dante…

Eleanor: Dante Alighieri!!! That’s unbelievable!!! Brancaleone, have you heard? We have Dante Alighieri, the Florentine at our desk!!!

Brancaleone (stops playing, puts the launeddas in the stool and goes closer, taking seat after shaking hands with Dante) It’s very nice to meet you!

Dante: It’s my pleasure!!!

Eleanor: There is Tuscan blood in our veins too! Though you might consider we are political rivals in some way!!! Please, my dear, take some glasses! We’re going to drink for celebrate this day!

Dante (confused and fascinated): Thank you very much;  but  please, don’t say I ‘m against you domina…

Eleanor (fiercely): I’m Eleanor Serra De  Bas from Sardinia, daughter to the King of Arborea, Mariano the Fourth; my mother was Timbora di Roccaberti daughter to the catalan Viscount Dalmazio.

Dante (standing up surprised, fall on his knees to kiss her hands): Let me pay the respect you deserve, queen of Arborea…

Brancaleone brings four glasses and smiles at Dante’s kneeling

Eleanor (helping him to stand up): Oh no, you are my guest, please. I know you are a great poet! Please have a drink (Dante, Brancaleone and Eleanor have a drink but Virgil doesn’t)

Dante (drying  his eyes off the tears of commotion and drinking some wine): I’ve known your great-grandfather Mariano the Third, in Pisa, in 1312; we were both there to pay respect to the great emperor Henry the Seventh of Luxenburg, the so called New Moses. His father was Chiano d’Arborea de Serra Bas, married with Giacomina della Gherardesca, daughter to the Count Ugolino della Gherardesca…

Eleanor: You know a lot of things of my family, Dante!!!

Dante: You belong to a great family! And Pisa is not so bad as I painted in my comedy…

Eleanor: Thank you Dante, though I must say that I feel to belong to Sardinia, more than to Pisa…

Dante: I was wrong and unfair to you country, beautiful queen Eleanor and I apologize for that. Could  you ever forgive me, you and your people?

Eleanor: So many people have been unfair to my country! And after all, who can say he has never mistaken?

Virgil: I think we need to go my son…

Dante (standing up and tendering the launeddas to Brancaleone) For the  love I promise to take to your country, please play for me once again!

While Brancaleone restarts playing Dante and Virgil will go away and the light will be off!

Traveling in spacetime with Virgil - 12

 

Second Act

First Scene

When the curtain is open again it’ll  be visible a luxuriant landscape with birdsongs, water’s gurgling  and brush’s rustles.

 

Dante: What a peaceful place, master!!! It seems a paradise!

Virgil: (laughing) Don’t mix up your senses! That’s a place of repentance, not of joy!!! Here people find another chance to deserve definitely the eternal joy!

Dante (surprised): Do you mean  they could yet get lost in hell?

Virgil: Yes, son, they actually could!

Dante. I’ve always thought that purgatory  was meant to deserve the paradise…

Virgil: There must be such a places, but not here!

Dante: But people here do pay for their blames?

Virgil: They also do that; but they must show another attitude to the meaning of life!

Dante: But people do reincarnate? Or do they play the same role they had in the earth?

Virgil: There are other places for reincarnation my son. Here  you find the same characters of the earth. Only they have other opportunities. In some way this place recalls the way the earth must have been before the man became so complex and adulterated…

Before Dante might interact a sound of cane flute (better if it comes from Sardinian threecaneflutes launeddas) is heard coming behind an half open door…

Dante (ecstatically): What a celestial sound? Who is playing it there?

Virgil: ( after bending to see) Have a look yourself…

Dante: Who is that  wonderful lady?

Virgil: Would you like to talk to her?

Dante: Please, master! It would be great if I could!

Virgil (knocking at the door): May I come in?

to be continued...

Traveling in spacetime with Virgil - 11

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071FB9SGV

Thirtieth – second  Scene

(The second Ante Hell: the guests are damned to gain money during the day and loose it at the end of the day; that’s forever, each and every day. The scene is occupied by  a Stock Exchange’s Hall (alternatively a video may be sent on); Virgil and Dante will observe, from a hidden point of view, lot of people, suited in a very fashion way, shouting and making signs each others;  some of them will be talking very busily, through small mobile phones very trendy and, from time to time, they stop talking in order to pass signs orders for selling and buying stocks).

 

1st man (making signs with his fingers)

            - I'll buy fifteen hundred!

2nd man

            - I'm  selling  three thousand of them!

3rd man

            - I need ten thousand quid!

4th man

            - Put twenty thousand a part for me!

5^th man

            - Swap them with the General Electrical, mate!

Dante (in an embarrassed tone of voice)

               - I can’t really understand what’s  going on over there, master?

Virgil (sighing)

                - They are making money...

Dante (a bit perplexed)

                - Do you mean, they are sort of landlords bankers???

Virgil

                - I didn't say that my son! They are actually mostly inventing money than producing it. They produce nothingness as matter of fact… I mean: not material stuffs…

Dante

                - I beg your pardon, sir, but I'm afraid I can't get the meaning of it!

 

Virgil

                - Of course you can't, my son!! It's not easy for anybody to understand. Listen to me, I'll try to explain to you the difference between production and speculation, real creation and virtual richness!  If you write a good book, for instance, and you sell it to a firm to be published and then the book is  sold in the shops: the buyers have a book in their hands; you, the editors ,the book sellers and all the people involved in the business share the profits; is that clear up to now?

Dante

                - Very clear indeed, master!

Virgil

                - That's right! Let's suppose  now  that your publisher hasn't got the  money  to publish your book!

How can he get it?

Dante

                - He goes to a Bank, I might suppose!

Virgil

                -And so do I, my son! But what happens if the banker hasn't got enough money himself?

Dante

                - I suppose my book won't see the light yet!!

Virgil

- It might be right, my son! Unless you don't consider the role played by those guys up there (he shows the stocks changers)

Dante (perplexed)

                - I'm sorry, master, but I'm still blind...

Virgil

                - Never mind it! Just follow me for a little more! The banker goes to those guys (he points out the stocks changers again) and asks them to sell the idea of publishing your book to the savers! 'You know what savers are, don't you my son?

Dante (readily)

                - Well, they are people who have more money than they need to live through!

Virgil

                - Correct, my son!

Dante

                - And of course they want their money to be safe for future needs!!

Virgil

                - That's still correct, my son!!! Put it like that: the savers trust the bankers and the stocks exchangers;  they even trust you and  your writing's skills! But this would not be a problem: financial investors have more instruments to convince savers in order to reach their targets! I'll show you later how a magic box  can wash people's brains just staying at home!!!

Dante (trying to understand)

                - So the banker asks the stocks changer to ask the savers to buy the idea of publishing my books...

Virgil

                - Yes, that's it!!! There are plenty of instruments: the publisher might have emitted some titles to guarantee the credits and the savers will buy those titles; or they can buy the future profits which are expected from the selling  of your books; they can even just lend their money on the promise of an interest to be paid...

Dante

                - And this money is given to the banker and borrowed by my publisher...

Virgil

                ... who publishes and distributes your books all over the world!!!

Dante

- All over the world,  master?

Virgil

                - Of course! Can't you write a Latin book to be sold all over the world?

Dante

                - Well, I suppose I can do it, master!!

Virgil

                - Well! And that's your first book, is n't it?

Dante

                - Yes, master! Though I don't see nothing wrong on it...

 

Virgil

         - But this is only the beginning, my son!!!

Dante

                - What do you mean , master?

Virgil

                - I mean that now, those guys (indicates the stokes changers like before) can ask the savers to buy your next book...

Dante

               - But I have just written my first one!

Virgil

                - It doesn't really matter my son!!! They will sell all the goods not yet produced like the wheat just seeded and all the events on the future to come!

Dante (very surprised)

                - Will they?

Virgil

                - And that's still nothing! If a firm is worth one million they can increase its value, just up there (shows the busy guys in the stocks exchange once again) up to ten millions or up to  hundred  millions, though its real value is still just only one million!! And that's thanks to the trust of people, 'till the game goes on!!!

Dante

                - Now I know master, what you meant, when you told me the guys over there make money from nothing!!!

Virgil

                - I'm glad you did it, my son!!! Come on, now, let's leave these incontinent people and go to the higher  states!!!

Dante

-          I’m feeling a sort of repentance master…

Virgil

-          Why? What Are you feeling guilty for ?

Dante:

-          For I was too scared to see the secret meanders of hell…

Virgil: Do you think so? I don’t agree you, my son… On my opinion we have seen more than enough of iniquities and desperation!

Dante

-          Didn’t we miss  Mao-Tse-Tung, Jossip Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini? And more: Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Kelbold, Ariel Castro, Marc Lépin, Rodney Glen King, Sang Huj Cho, Benne Gunness, Irma Grese and other horrible females…

Virgil:

-          (stopping him) Believe me my son: the hell is like  the universe… he expands to infinity. You cannot really visit the hell all around. It’s impossible!!!

Dante (only half persuaded)

-          I see… What about Zwingli, Calvin and Luther?

Virgil (with a mischievous smile and pointing up with his right forefinger)

-          All three upstairs!!!

Dante (admitting his fears)

-          Why am I so doubtful and suspicious when I have to move to a new place?

Virgil (laughing)

-          Come on Dante!!! We’re leaving the bloody hell for a surely better place!

Dante (reassured)

-          You’re right, master! So we’ll face now the upper lighting cone?

Virgil: Oh no, my son!!! We’re not allowed to travel in the future!!! We’ll cut the the walls of the upper cone instead!!!

Dante: How is named our next destination?

Virgil: We are going to visit   the nearest of the forty billions of habitable planets astronomers estimate existing in the Milky Way!

Dante: Gosh! I thought such a nearest place was Alpha Centaury!

Virgil: Update your astronomical knowledge my son! Have you ever heard of Trappist Systems?

Dante: Please tell me what are them, master!

Virgil: Well, I’ll tell you of them in the way to Purgatory. Let’s go!

Exeunt.

Endo of the Forst Act

to be continued...