7.23.2022

Recuerdos de un Italiano en Londres-22

https://www.amazon.fr/Solo-como-una-piedra-Recuerdos-ebook/dp/B09Z6C5LKC/
 

Cerca de la plaza de Leicester Square hay muchas taquillas, teatros, pubs, discotecas, restaurantes, clubes, bares y locales nocturnos, casas de cambio y tiendas de ropa; estos últimos, en su mayoría, son propiedad de comerciantes indios y pakistaníes, abiertos los siete días de la semana, desde las nueve de la mañana hasta altas horas de la noche. La presencia de varias oficinas de cambio de moneda era un testimonio seguro de la cosmopolita Londres, especialmente por la atracción hecha a los visitantes extranjeros por este lugar.

Alrededor de Leicester Square había tambien muchos establecimientos publicos de entretenimiento, cada uno con sus propias peculiaridades. Por ejemplo, el "Café París" detrás de su aparente normalidad, mantenìa un secreto conocido solo por un pequeño círculo. Era  frecuentado por mujeres viejas y ricas en busca de gigolò o cualquier joven apuesto para olvidar por unas horas, su soledad y su tiempo, tal vez corrido demasiado rápido; o "The worm", un lugar de encuentro para gays y lesbianas; el "Orgullo de


Cokney", donde se tocaba la música tradicional de Londres.

7.21.2022

Recuerdos de un Italiano en Londres-21


Leicester Square es una plaza no muy lejos de Piccadilly Circus. Desde allí se accede a través de dos calles cortas pero comercialmente importantes: Coventry Street y New Coventry Street.

En el camino opuesto, hacia la amplia Plaza Trafalgar, alrededor de la Galería Nacional, en una calle llamada San Martín, hay otra categoría especial de comerciantes de la calle: ¡los pintores

itinerantes!

Estudiantes de la Academia de Bellas Artes de Londres y de las Escuelas Artisticas de todo el mundo, aficionados, hombres hábiles en el arte de la pintura y el retrato; jóvenes artistas emergentes y viejos artistas ya retirados; aspirantes artistas o presumidos, todos convergen en este rincón de Londres para ofrecer a los transeúntes el


resultado de su inspiración en el lienzo, por una tarifa que puede


variar desde unas pocas libras para un retrato o una caricatura realizada allí, hasta retratos mucho más caros en diferentes estilos y temas, con la esperanza de dejar a sus descendientes tal vez el equivalente de un Van Gogh.

Aunque, para ser honestos, pocos turistas tenìan el coraje y la perspicacia comercial para invertir y apostar por el talento pictórico de esos extraños, expositores anónimos; y no menos importante, es cierto que todos, incluidos los simplemente curiosos, respiraban un aire fresco auténticamente bohemio porque, más allá del valor artístico de esos pintores no sedentarios, los turistas de camino debían apreciar la habilidad, facilidad y libertad con la que esos pintores expresaban en su arte sus ansiedades existenciales, reales o supuestas que fueran.

7.20.2022

The real story of Patrick Winningoes-14

 




Apart the “Helianthus”, which I recognize as common sunflowers, the other plants, as I noticed nearby, had some oblong leaves. At the base of the trunk they were palms of five, increasing to the top, in groups of seven, nine, eleven and also thirteen. Some of them, those of the tallest plants, had besides, some bosoms that surely contained, the seeds necessary for reproduction.


- «Do You like them?» - I heard Mr Winningoes asking while I was absorbed making such considerations.


«- Yes, certainly» - I returned indifferently, extracting some seeds from a sunflower and showing to an amused and surprised Mr Winningoes that they could be eaten just cracking them on the tip and extracting their inner pulp.



-« They grow up spontaneously, every year. My gardener and I take care of them, polishing up the ground, and, only when the plants are dry, watering them a little. I believe they have been installed by the precedents owners and I decided to maintain them. Don't you find they are beautiful indeed?»


- «Oh yes, they certainly are»- George responded with emphasis, while my heart was beating strong for the emotion.


- «My Jesus, George! There ‘s a lot of good, green grass here! Do you realize that ?»


-«Shhhhhh» - George hissed, turning slightly to me with his forefinger crossed on the lips, preventing me to show my enthusiasm for that so much pleasant, as much more unexpected discovery, while our guest was preceding us back toward the main entry.

In fact we emerged from the opposite side of the atrium. After taking our bags back, we followed Mr. Winningoes inside the residence. We immediately were in an ample saloon and in front of the entry it was beheld a wide ramp of staircases that finished at the feet of a stumpy wood door whose sides departed two long corridors. The inside subdivision faithfully followed evidently the external structure of the house.


- «I’ll give you the rooms on the right side of the house”–he said taking the corridor in that direction - “because they get the sun, in the morning, and I think that it’s wonderful to wake with the sun. Don't you agree with me?»


-« Yes, yes! Of course we do» - I answered, thinking I would be closer to “my” dear plants.


-« Think however like being at your own place» –he said opening the door and preceding us inside the room. «Just one more thing»- he added turning his heels - «in front of you there is the bathroom; refresh and put yourselves easier. In a hour I will call you for lunch»-. He cordially greeted and, closing the door on his shoulders, left us eventually alone.
The room was ample and sunny. On the right there were two single beds, separated by two bedsides table, each one beholding one night lamps and a tray, with a cruet and a glass of water.
We took a seat on the bed and we looked into each other’s eyes for a long while. George wanted to say something, but he looked quietly like a fish in a ball, moving silently his mouth.


Finally he said: - «How is this place called? We are not in London certainly; have you seen that sun, out there?.»


-«As far as I know we are in the south of Thames river and the place is called Heavengate.. or something like that…»


- «No, I didn't mean that! To say the south of Thames river it ‘s like to say the south of the equator” – he interrupted me in a nervous tone of voice-” You can remember the way we have been through, can’t you?»-.


- «Hay, George »- I returned in the same tone - “you were sleeping all the way long and you’re asking me now what way we have been routing through!!!


- “I’m sorry, I’m very sorry “- he replied to me in a peaceful voice, moving up to the curtains of the window.


- «I only remember that we have passed through Kingston. Yes, the last place that I remember is just Kingston »I -said striving myself to remember - “then I felt sleepy myself too.”


-” Good Lord! “he cried coming back to sit on the bed desolately.

- Could you tell me please what’s wrong with you George? We slept on the way to Heavengate, and then? What’s the matter? Now, at lunch, we ask directly to Mr Winningoes about everything we need to know and we will see what’s better for us to do! Don’t you think we can?” - .


- «I don't even know myself what’s going on. It’s all so strange to me, in this story...»- .


-« Just tell me where is the strangeness you see?» - I did reassuring him-. “There is not really nothing strange. On the other hand if we don't like the story, we can always leave off, can’t we? “


- “You do really think that we can leave off anyway? I’m not so sure…“- He replied polemically .


- “But do you realize that there is here a plantation of marihuana just down here? Come and have a look outside” -. He said going to the window and removing the window’s curtain again…

- “Ah yes, it ‘s true! “- I exclaimed joyful - With these vain discourses it went out of my mind. And you are not happy? Do you realize it? The man here, lives on the moon. He surely knows the Latin names, but he doesn't know the better use of it. Furthermore he has told us we can make as if were at home. Do you know what I would do, if I were at home with all that good grass down there? “-


But my enthusiasm didn't seem to bend him on my side. He released the edge of the curtain and after having a cigarette lit up, in a cloud of smoke, he said with much impetus: - “How can you be so happy ? If the police comes over here, what would we say to them? That we know we are on the south of Father Thames? That we fallen asleep in Kingston and similar bull shit? And you think that they would believe us? Do you want to know what happens to you, instead? They bring you straight way to the royal prison at Brixton, close you in a cell and throw its key in the very deep of the sea. That’s what happens to you!” -.


- “Be quiet, please! First of all we are in England, and this is a civilized country and not some kind of a banana’s republic . No one can’t be arrested without criminal evidence. Secondly, why would we have to think about the worse? Perhaps the man, out there, does look like someone concealed or involved in police’s affairs? “-.


- “And why not? May be he is a great dealer who wants to involve us in his illegal traffics! Have not you formerly heard him, speaking of landings by some private airplanes? “ -.


- “A dealer? But what kind of dealer are you talking about?! Do you also start making the moralist, now? It sounds as you were my father speaking! I tell you, instead, that our presence, here at Heavengate, doesn't have anything to do with those plants! And you will see either I am right or wrong . The old one has not even planted them. Either is a smart the gardener or those plants grow up by natural insemination. For what regards the police, you can even be safer: Mr Winningoes is a very rich landlord and here, in England, landlords and rich people are not supposed to be in trouble with the police” -.

“However it is, you will also have to admit that all the circumstances make evidence of somewhat dark and incomprehensible” -.


“ Would you please show me exactly what do you see dark and incomprehensible on this story?”


“And do you wonder it? We don't even know where we are and what the hell we have come here for, though we had an income of 100 pounds God only knows to make what job for!!!. And for you everything it is clear?

- “Have you forgotten that we are in London, by chance? And you wonder that there is someone who gives an advance of 100 miserable pounds in a city where a pair of boots for hunting the fox do cost, at least, £ 700, I say, seven hundred pounds?! Let's go! Come on! It might also be that the old Winningoes is some weak brainless! And what’s wrong with this? Sooner or later he will have to tell us what does it suit him? We will perform our job, do what we owe to do, he pays us for it, and well enough! Provided that he pays well, because also here in London, if you don't have money, you are a bull shit, worth less than a nothing “. -

- “Still if all this is dealt with a regular and honest job!! Till now I have only heard of everything less than a job. I’m asking myself why has he brought us here? Could not he tell us in the agency what he has drawn for us? All these mysteries, these strangeness, make me suspicious. I cannot feel calm and sure, do you understand me? “-.


- “Hay! I can also admit that not everything has gone as it normally goes. However, can you explain to me which reason for things should always go in a damned, banal and normal way? Do we also want to reduce life to a rigid and predetermined theatrical script where everything has already been written and established?” -.

He fixed me with an intense and deep look. I knew I had touched a key which his mind was sensitive to. I sustained his look, strong of my reasons, until he didn't seem defeated. Then I took back, in persuasive tone, sitting him nearby:


- “Perhaps we have not realized that we are living through an adventure of those that we have always desired to live. Why shall we ruined all on the base of simple conjectures? Or even for fear? Let’s abandon ourselves to the course of the events, without thinking too much of it. I feel that we are crossing a sure path, a correct path, a path that has a heart!” - .

He stood up again and, lighting a cigarette, passed his right hand on his hair. It was his own way of reflecting in the critical moments before undertaken an important decision.


- “We will discover, while crossing it, if really has got it” – he finally said. And, taking his bag, he went out to the bathroom.


When, later, Mr. Winningoes knocked discreetly at our door, we had taken a little rest and were ready for lunch.


After lunch, when already satiated, we lazily plucked with some little, ivory handled forks in a cup of tasty and colored fruit salad, Mr Winningoes, after having attracted our attention clearing by more resumptions his throat, told us he was ready to finish his own story.


7.15.2022

The real story of Patrick Winningoes-13

 

https://www.amazon.it/real-story-Patrick-Winningoes-Salvatore-ebook/dp/B0B244SFNQ/

- «The rest of the story, my friends, makes a sole contest with now day's circumstances, even if it is made of a long and twisted thread. I left soon after Ireland, where nothing more held me back, and I returned again to my studies, once more in the United States of America, eager to undertake my studies again.


At the beginning I didn't have a precise plan. I threw myself in the direction which had been showed to me by the two American researchers who had succeeded isolating the DNA, subject in which I was already however enough advanced, connecting such new events to my former studies on ‘nouchefalon ', always maintaining them to a level of theoretical study.


In those same years, another big frontier of knowledge was opening to human science: the Artificial Intelligence! At first vaguely, then with increasing insistence and precision, the creation of mechanical machines, prognosticated able to think, such intelligent to replace men in the most complexes and difficult duties advanced in the programs of science and industry.

In that field my theoretical studies would have been aimed in order to find practice application. For my mind, even if tired and exploited, it was not difficult to acquire that new ulterior branches on science. It was even easier for me than for other researchers, because my study didn't know neither distractions, nor conditionings of any kind.


It was a new radiant youth which drove me in that marvelous meander, to the discovery of unexpected, admirable horizons. I can't certainly explain to you, here, in a few words, all the passages of my complex program, that foresaw new tests and new studies. You must know however that I had conceived to build a machine, intelligent and perfect, able not only to analyze, to deduce, to synthesize; what would have set it, however, higher than the most actual and advanced generations of computers, but also able to reproduce living beings to itself alike. I prompted a technique of laboratory able to allow the endless duplication of the DNA.


Then, admitting and developing these duplicates of cell, I would have been possible to procreate and to produce the perfect, infallible, invincible masters of the future world, destined to put an end to every war and every violence in our sick planet. And when in this I had succeeded, I would have into my hands the opening key of the door that conducts to a New History of Manhood on Earth!.»

 

As a  matter of fact the story of Mr Winningoes was almost at the end. Or it seemed to be so, at least at that moment.


He had finished his discourse, assuming that thrilling, prophetic attitude, as he were a priest, or a messiah, a leader for the humanity in need to be saved by him.


Once more he had stopped with his forefinger, thin and long, pointed out somewhere in the Universe, may be addressing the remote origin of his supreme agents, stiffening in the whole person, with his eyes like popping out of his head, immovable as a statue.
He recovered quite soon from his sudden, provisional coma and repurchased the mobility of the eyes and the limbs. He took a look around, like a man coming from another world who wants to understand the place where an invisible spatial ship had let him shipwrecked.


I recalled in to my mind, just then, as a flash-back, an old companion of my infant games who suffered of epilepsy. At times, in the very middle of the action, suddenly he was caught by a crisis’s peak. He stared then fixed, with an horrid expression in his face, for some endless seconds.
And when he recovered himself and took back the game exactly from where he had left, as if nothing had happened.

Or this strange attitude had something to do on what had discovered in his garden just few hours ago?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.13.2022

The real story of Patrick Winningoes-11

 

https://www.amazon.it/real-story-Patrick-Winningoes-Salvatore-ebook/dp/B0B244SFNQ/

The excited and emphatic tones he had firstly used to relate the purposes of his studies, had left place to most calm tones, yet still impassioned, he sounded now measured with impartial criticism.

From my point of view, I had already forgotten some insane light that I had glimpsed in his eyes, a little before, during his story. And now reassured by those noble words, I perceived the mind of a balanced and wise old man. It seemed to me that also George was expressing in his eyes my same feelings, so that the man, after having greedily drunk a glass of water, revolved to his narration in the same calm tone as before.



We were ready to listen to him with much of attention.

 

«During the sorrowful trip homeward, the young assaulter, whose name was Adam, told me, amid tears of desperation for his companion’s misfortune, to be a son of illegal immigrated from Mexico, and to have quarreled with that companion just for futile motives. As I had foreseen, every effort to save his life had to reveal useless. When his youth heart uttered the last faint pulsation I asked to Adam, who had assisted him with me in that night of agony, what he wanted to do.


Adam said to be prepared to pay for his guilt gesture, but I tried to convince him the uselessness to decay in a cell for the rest of his days, or much worse, to end stupidly his life on the electric chair.

I told him, without going down in any details, totally incomprehensible for him, the big events that would have seen him protagonist in the future destinies of humanity, and, yet with no little resistance, at length he accepted to undergo trough the experiment of transmission of the “nouchefalon”, also encouraged by the fact that perhaps his unfortunate fellow would relived in him, through the essence of life, and much more, for the reason that I promised a strong money reward to him .


Which the young man gratefully accepted, not so much for himself, but for the family of his killed companion. What admirable example of superiority and excellence! In the scurvy world of money, that man, just little more than a boy, son of miserable emigrants, grown in a numerous family at the borders of the disgusting American opulence, abdicated the money that the fate offered to him for the advantage of other poor people.

 

Day after day, I realized that my scientific interests were connected to another, indefinable feeling, utterly new for me, and my heart was increasingly caring for the life of the young Adam.
From time to time I sent a conspicuous check to his family and that of his unlucky dead friend, unintentionally offended, to make their lives less poor and miserable. Also in the choice of the young man, the Fate had shown to be wise. And how it would have been otherwise?

The founder of the new, future race; the man who would have conducted Manhood on the straight binary of material and spiritual progress , he who would have been the head of the new big tribe of the chosen people, couldn’t he have been perhaps but a sublime mind?


Without delay and with trepidation, but also with lucidity and extreme skill, I drew, with an apparatus by myself built and already tested, the liquid jewel and transfused it in the man selected by the Stars, the young Adam, attending with long live emotion the results.



In the meantime I introduced him to studies, while I was going more and more fond of him.
The young man learned with unbelievable promptness and, constantly, I saw him grow in wisdom and intelligence, unstoppable as the rise of the sun. But I would have stopped, by now, only at the peak of the most perfection.



It happened in those years, that the press, with alarm and indignation, reported of numerous news of horrid mutilations of dead bodies, that were but mere brain’s amputations; grisly but necessary holocaust to the prosecution of my experiments. The unaware journalists didn't succeed in making sense of why the defaced dead bodies were all belonged to young people aged between 18 and 25 years, dead for accidental causes, and above all why they were been removed only by the heads.

 

 

Of course the investigators attributed the unusual thefts to a crazy person and being worried from a public opinion more and more alarmed and timorous (foolish are the men, who instead of worrying about the threats to the alive people, feel panic for bodies without more soul), predisposed some more rigorous controls so that I was forced to interrupt my removals.



When I took back with them, in order to prevent other public alarm, I started removing only their precious brain, sewing to perfection their craniums shortly after.

What allowed me to continue to work unmolested at my project, and the police officers to boast  another, undeserved  success.


The job however proceeded very slowly. It appeared to me so evident therefore that the reversibility of human “nouchefalon” was slower and more hard-working than that of other animals. But it didn't bother me for nothing. After all, as I’ve already said, the young Adam became more and more endearing to me, and together with the scientific successes I also pursued those of father, and these last involved the accomplishment of duties, that were also means of pleasures.


Unexpectedly, while the father seemed to overwhelm the scientist, I realized that I had succeeded.

My student, my pupil, was flowing on the wings of the clearest and pure intelligence. The Euclidean geometry, Algebra, Galileo’s and Newton’s laws, Mendelèev’s periodic table, Maxwell, Einstein, had already become patrimony of his knowledge and his own science.
Even more he was already able to criticize its defects, to make evidence of its limits, to point out its necessary evolutionary developments.


And the same happened for other branches of science: he was endued with Philosophy, Letters,  Social Sciences,  Biology, Medicine.



Any claw of the human knowledge, which he turned his own mind to, surrendered every inmost secret to him. I already found, despite of my numerous decades spent on the books, some difficulties comparing my knowledge with his. That was enough!



I decided to adopt him, so that he could take on my name and my titles, and built up on my patrimony the basis of the new world. He would have stopped the violence, the wars, the sufferings of humanity. He would sum up in his hands the power of the whole world and dominate for the sake of Art and Science, leading Manhood to the discovery of the endless universe and his absolute dominion.



He would become the uncontested Lord all over the world. Over daily baseness, over mediocre rivalries between mankind, over the miserable earthling power, and much more there was to be conquered!”

This new final access, almost declaimed in prophetic and delirious tone, brought me back to reality.

I found myself wandering, once more, how was that man able to embody lucidity and folly in such a natural manner. How could cohabit so deeply in his mind those noble, human feelings with the others, diabolic and perverse?


But by now my interest for his story was at the peak and, however, my mind was quiet and serene. I was ready, therefore, to keep on listening his telling.

 

”It was my desire, my friends, that the ransom of the new world set off from my motherland, the land my mother had loved so much, up to sacrifice her liberty and even her own life.


We moved therefore to Ireland, my child and I; my mother's country at that time was still suffering split up in two parts. We moved to the free part, in a house in the centre of Dublin, since a long time ownership of the Parnells. From there, as I told you, the new course of the world would have set up.


I married Adam to a sweet, Gaelic, young girl, named Eva, who had to become the mother of the new world. You can easily imagine, my friends, how great was my exultation, when I knew that that girl, the Adam’s wife, had been conceived.


I could consider that all my efforts had been well repaid!! I was so happy that all my past sufferings, fell in to oblivion. But alas! What a grief destiny was hanging over me! My child, my beloved Adam, in an access of folly, killed his pregnant wife before killing himself. Only a brief, arid message he left on justification of his insane gesture:


My dear Father, we dared too much. Might God forgive us.' and nothing more than that.

What did it happen? What did determine on him the insane decision? Perhaps a disease? A sudden raptus? A premonition? Or perhaps I had unconsciously transfused him some sick geniuses of craziness???

How much I would have preferred that my experiments had failed!!! I would have easily given up my life of studies and searches, and also the success that I got to, yet in the ignorance of the academicians and the official science, for having still with me my Adam, my dear, beloved family. How I would then prefer, even to be died!”



This time I didn't have any doubt about it. There were really tears, some plain, true tears sparkling in those intelligent and tired eyes. But also this time the man, with a sudden gesture of the hand, got off any trace of them by his napkin. I thought embarrassed how much force owed to possess the mind of that strange old man. George seemed embarrassed too. He lit a cigarette, before passing his packet to me. We were prepared to follow the story of Mr Winningoes which was going to end.


“I lived innumerable days of sadness and deep sufferings, always thinking to finish my useless and empty existence. And I would have certainly done it if one day the destiny had not driven my tired footsteps toward a new dawn.


I was sitting in a solitary bench in O'Connol street, in the centre of Dublin, looking at the intense traffic of the city, considering inside of me how much the human provision is vain, when a sudden gust of wind threw me a sheet of an old newspaper. I picked it up and, when I was about to roll it up, a capital block title attracted my attention.


The article brought the news that two American biologists, Watsons and Crick, had succeeded in the admirable and revolutionary enterprise to isolate the DNA, the nucleic acid responsible of the transmission of the geniuses in all the animal species.


The news struck me as a light, giving me back the energy and a new desire for life that I had considered forever lost. If every man had a genetic code and if this genetic code was transmitted with the acid nucleic DNA, it would have been possible, then, through the new discovery, to isolate the genetic patrimony of the cleverest individuals and to transmit it to other human beings, in order to form the new super-race, the new dominant class, the elite of the new universal order! For Adam, for me, for my maternal ancestors and for the whole humanity, I felt to be my duty to take back my studies. That new spark had re lighted on me the sacred fire of Science. My mission on the earth had to be taken back ‘till conclusion!”


While narrating these last events, Mr Winningoes had transformed again. From the sad and resigned man who had just cried the death of his family and the end of his same own life, he was returned a pugnacious and strong man, lifting up the head and squirting a new and powerful energy from his green little eyes. I imagined him in the same metamorphosis, in that solitary bench in the centre of Dublin while he was reawakening from the compassionate numbness of the anguish, rising to new battles and new aims.

How many times had changed the old man since we firstly met him on that Friday the 9th of November? How many faces had he showed us since then? I recalled into my mind even other characters who now, appeared to be the same man, though pretending to play a different role in the previous day’s story. Like, for instance, that mysterious and strange Mr Joking.

 

7.12.2022

The real story of Patrick Winningoes-10

 

https://www.amazon.it/real-story-Patrick-Winningoes-Salvatore-ebook/dp/B0B244SFNQ/



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 show 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. In 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 then, 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».



How my goodness he could have read that whole notice on the bottom of that last page, I am not still able to explain ‘till today, but he seemed to read it and be sure of that as I am.
At the end of that reading he looked at us slightly smiling, yet not showing the teeth, that, perhaps he didn't even have on his mouth.


Of all the Job’s applications that my brain had grinded in those last weeks, this was indeed the strangest and most sensational.


- "No references are required!" -.



What a cheerful sound! At long I had found someone who did not give a damn of those stupid, absurd references. I also hated them before my arriving to London. And if I made a thought of how many jobs I had lately lost because of my lack of references, could easily got out of my mind! References! As if a man was not worth for what he is, being not able to show the world his real qualities. Nay! There must be somebody else, a master, a priest, a pimp to affirm that you are good, and you are worth and you are trustable.


- «Ah! No references!»– It played again, still in my radiant breast with enjoyment, while George had been silent thinking who knows what about!


-« No references» – he pronounced at last through strictly teeth, hissing the final syllables and twisting a few his mouth. -" What kind of job is related with?" – then he said choosing every single word and scrutinizing intensely the old agent.


- «It deals with an easy and well remunerated job» - the employee answered sustaining steadily George’s gaze - «and also... pleasant …I would say» -, he added, coughing with embarrassed smile, before pronouncing the adjective.


«Anyway, you need to know» – he said changing tone afterwards - "that there are some condition to be considered essential for getting the job. That’s why you will have to submit you to accurate medical visits. If they are all right, interposed with an enigmatic smile of agreement, an advance of 100 pounds will be given to you and on next Monday, you can start working. I will personally come to pick you up and explain your duties to you."


I little missed a cry of joy coming out of me. Even if of his discourse, I am sincere, I had not understood everything, I was certain that he had spoken of an advance of 100 pounds. I launched an excited look to George, but he didn't seem to share my enthusiasm.


Mr Winningoes certainly attended a sign of assent or denial from us. Since nobody of us spoke, he gave for understood that our consent had been reached.


-« Well»- he said lifting slowly off the chair -«we are going to start with the tests. Follow me, please.»

This way saying he had opened a door on his shoulders, whose handle was slightly visible on the wall. We advanced in a narrow and dark corridor where, hardly, we perceived the shape of the man walking in front of us.


- «As I have told you before» – I heard the man saying, - «we need to make some medical analysis. There will also be some arithmetic and bookkeeping tests. Please, don't be offended if they will be too easy. It is a pure formality. I am certain that your intelligence will plainly pulverize such simple tests »-.



How could he had been so sure, I was not able to understand at the time. I attributed those affirmations as others previously heard by that strange man, to the English odd, character.

In the dark of that endless corridor I continued attached to George’s forearm who tailed the strange man nearby.


The long corridor finally turned to end: we perceived, at first, a feeble light from the bottom which became increasing brighter, until we saw a door with the wood loom and a ruled rectangular crystal, shaping his centre. The door introduced us in a small room with the white walls: on the right there was a lacquered white metal bench, where our guide asked us, kindly, to sit down and attend. We saw him entering a door exactly outstanding on the front wall.


We looked around: the walls of the room were bare. Only a crucifix decorated the opposite wall of our sits and, under of it, a small reliquary, also in metal, of the same white lacquered couch’s color with five or six full ledges of vials, bottles and boxes of medicines. The furniture was completed by two chairs, and a long and low small table that was in front, the one and the other always of lacquered metal.


On the right side of the bench, there was a short door of small dimensions, with a red cross and the write W.C. in black characters.


When the door opened again on the right after a short time, with our big surprise appeared, pushing a mobile cart, a very elegant nurse. Her white-celestial uniform bandaged her body putting in beautiful evidence the abundant breast, the narrow sides and the strong buttocks. She had a beautiful wide face with rosy cheeks, dark and great eyes, fleshy lips and an aquiline but well proportionate nose. The chestnut hair were wound in a white cuff.




- «Hello» - She did us entering, with a smile on the white and strong teeth «My name is Miss Goodhealth. Doctor Winningoes will be here in a minute».



She did not waste a single minute, as while pronouncing her last words had in fact already taken in her hands a syringe.

After screwing and cleaning skillfully the needle, she deposed it in a special nickel’s container on the mobile cart she had pushing entering in the room. Following she repeated the same operation with another syringe and, sitting gracefully in front of us, in a sweet whisper, we were informed of her duty to proceed on collecting a small champion of our blood.



She took with delicacy George’s left hand and, unsheathing with ability his arm ‘till the biceps, after tightening its superior part with a haemostatic drawstring, she inserted with definite precision the needle in his vein. In a eye’s move the piston moved backwards showing the flow of the dense red liquid.


- «Thanks» –burst with emphasis the nurse while she was extracting the needle pressing contemporarily with an alcohol-soaked bit of cotton the right point where it had punctured.



George followed the woman’s rapid gestures with apprehension and distrust.


-" It’s your turn, now, young fellow" -she resolved turning at me. She skillfully moved on her side the small table and she repeated the operation with the same precision and with unchanged delicacy.


Once the woman was gone out, we stayed alone for a weary of time and, when the door was reopened, it was Mr Winningoes to appear us. He wore, with elegance and naturalness, a white medical uniform with long sleeves.


-« Is everything all right? »- he happily apostrophized us, always with an enigmatic smile by his closed lips. He held on his hands a great bunch of sheets and delivered a bundle of them to each one of us.



Without attending any answer to the preceding question, he said then: -« Compile them for me, please» -.



He handed to us some pens and, after greeting, disappeared through the same way had come, not without first remembering us we had to fill with urine the small containers of glass that the nurse had left on the small table. The papers to be filled were concerned with personal data: our dobs, place of birth, main studies, actual residence, previous jobs, civil status; different questions concerned our personal health and the illnesses also suffered by our parents and narrow relatives.



Certain terms were totally unknown , but nevertheless we answered with a "no" to all the questions concerning the illnesses we had previously suffered and also by our narrow relatives, which was for how much it concerned me, the plain true . Some other sheets contained, instead, simple exercises of transformation from English measures into metric-decimal measures.


It was for instance asked, to transform, into meters and centimeters, yards and feet; Kilos and grams, into ounces and pounds; liters into pints and so away enumerating.

It was not even difficult to resolve some problems that would also have been of easy solution for a little boy of normal intelligence of our middle schools. George was coming out of the service, with his vial of heat liquid smoking in his hand, when Mr. Winningoes reappeared silent. My friend seemed embarrassed to be caught with his urine in the hands.


-« Lay it on the table» - the man told him in nonchalant tone. - « you have compiled them all?» - he continued in the same tone looking at the sheets we had placed on the table after filling them.


- «I ‘m really satisfied of you! Very satisfied» - he added while examining the sheets. His bare little eyes shone slightly, betraying an internal emotion never noticed before then.


After inserting the sheets in the capable pockets of the white uniform he asked us to follow him.

He drove us with rapid footstep, back through the long corridor and finally we reemerged in the office of the agency.


-« Take a sit, please» – he said bending on the drawers, after he had taken a sit at the desk.



Soon after he delivered to both of us, one envelope of beige color.




-« Here there are 100 pounds for your trouble of today. If definitive analyses will confirm the first picked data, we will sign the contract and will fix the correct remuneration for your performances. Now please excuse me: I have to conclude the preparations for Monday. I will accompany you through the staircases -.»



While he was leading through the staircases I stroke a furtive look in the envelope. The effigy of the Queen of England Elizabeth the Second, printed on five 20 pounds notes, smiled at me more times in the faint light. That man was beginning to become nice at me. He accompanied us until the threshold and followed us out, after opening the front door.



Out, the sky was still covered with dark clouds. The poster of the agency was still beating, nervously, on the wood of the front door and the wind seemed to pull it away out of the door. Our mysterious friend provided by his own hand to detach it and putting it under his arm he said:



- «It ‘s not useful anymore. Everything is ready for Monday. Everything is ready, now» - .



I seemed to perceive a twinkling of folly in his eyes, while pronouncing those mysterious words. But it was only an almost imperceptible flicker.


- «Don’t take much this week end. If everything goes well, I will pass to pick you up, at 7,oo o’clock! Good-bye to Monday -»



And so saying he disappeared behind the heavy front door he closed quickly on his shoulders.













7.11.2022

The real story of Patrick Winningoes-9

- “After so many  experiments and such a meditation, I definitely decided to make the big footstep. I would  inject the “nouchefalon” of a man in the brain of another being of the same kind. The basic job was entirely developed. The premises seemed to be straight very good: all the similar experiments on the other animals had been conducive to improvement.


So the dogs, since the first injections of canine “nouchefalon”, improved their smell, their strength and the whole psycho-physical complex sensitively descending from the brain. The same can be said for the cats; made object of analogous experiment, they became more agile, stronger and more cunning. And the same had still happened with the mice.

You can of course imagine, what such an emotion I felt when I injected those drops that were deposed on the fund of the test-tube, to a guinea-pig.

 

The result was amazing, greater and more meaningful than I had been able to foresee myself. The mouse, a normal mouse of averages age and greatness, after spending twelve hours asleep, wakened up again. Apparently he seemed to be the same as before the injection, but actually he moved in a different manner however.  He had, in a few words, a different air. He slowly started walking and moving its tail upwards, in a way quite unusually for a mouse; furthermore he sniffed and smelled the air and the ground of the cage. And I was much more surprised when I saw him stretching its legs towards and backwards and, curving the backbone up, forming a tall hunch. Its limbs still looked like those of a mouse, but they behaved as belonged to a cat! That was the exceptional result!

 

The animal seemed restless and took on turning around the cage with his feline behavior. He was surely looking for some food. I gave him his usual mice food but after he had smelled it for a long time, he started over turning around visibly more nervous and hungrier. I opened a cat tin food and with my great surprise he devoured that meal in a flash.  He grew up constantly in the following days, assuming a double massive structure compared to the same aged of his own race, then his growth seemed to halt. His epidermis had not suffered either big mutations; nor the bony structure, at least externally, showed to have acquired any peculiar characters, except for the moustaches and the legs, that seemed to have changed for a most congenial use to cat’s needing. In the movements and in the external behavior he moved as a cat though having the semblances of a mouse.

 

A serious question had bothered me since the first days of the experiment: how would that animal relate with another mice? And how would other cats relate with him? In his more inner instinct had he become a cat or he had remained a mouse?  With much trepidation I moved him to captivity with other mice: they started to squeak very afraid; it was evident that those small rodents had immediately warned the hostile presence.

 

He had a good time pursuing them and grabbing them as cats make with mice, and at long, exhausted and satisfied, he rested quietly on a side of the big cage, while the little mice, remained farther all afraid and trembling.

He didn't show any interest to pursue them, more than in that joking way, perhaps because he was not hungry or even because something inside prevented him from doing it. The thing, after all, didn't interest me and I transferred him afterwards with a real cat, and also there the success arose to me: they behaved as two bosom and jovial friends. It was clear, at that point, that the cells of the “nouchefalon” were reversing: they were able, that is it, to be reduced from the normal organic state to a synthesis, through thermal process, and from this state, be brought again to the aboriginal state continuing on developing their natural function.



Of course to subtract some dogs to the amusement of selfish and insensitive masters or the cats to their miserable existence of sterilized animals and foolish by the stupidity of their masters, repulsed a great deal less than to deprive a family, a man or a woman from the affection of a beloved face.
But finally, this was what the fate wanted me, and the ideal night at long finally came, for me and for the world, resolving me to the action!

 


https://www.amazon.it/real-story-Patrick-Winningoes-Salvatore-ebook/dp/B0B244SFNQ/

I set out toward the poor districts of the city, immediately encouraged by the full smile of the moon. There, where people mostly suffered, I would have found easier to get what I needed and consume the necessary holocaust for the ransom of the humanity. I didn't have any idea how to manage the whole thing, but I had a great trust inside of me. I advanced in the miserable roads and wandered for a long time, without destination. After so much to wander, when I already thought about abdicating, some cries attracted my attention: two men quarreled, at the very bottom of an alley, between cans full of garbage.


I decided immediately to follow unmolested the scene. Words gave soon places to  knives as in facts they appeared in their hands. The fastest and most fortunate succeeded on splitting the stomach of the adversary. It was enough: I run toward the two men. The hurter was just more than a boy, and now was standing, in despair, with the knife, still tightened in his fist. I could see it reddish at the light of the moon.

 

- «Quick»–I howled him. – «I am a physician, just help me! I have nearby the car: we will bring him home and try to save him».

 

- "I drove like a crazy man through the desert roads. I was a physician and my duty was to try to save that young life from death.

Though having already appraised the gravity of his wounds, I felt inside that the hoarse man, in the back of my car, was the victim designated by the destiny for the beginning of the big experiment that would have transformed the world and the history of the man. Don't look with mercilessness's eyes at me, my friends, for these words I have told you.


The life of a man is worthless in the mysterious, spinning wheels of the Cosmos. Nobody in the world dies by random, yet hundreds and thousands of deaths a day, leave unchanged the course of the humanity. Somehow, I have anticipated and studied for all my life, because this course was completed in the right way. And though I was ready to do anything in order to accomplish with my programs, I was exempted to committee the most atrocious of crimes: the Fate itself killed for me, through the irresponsible hand of an outcast young man.” Mr Winningoes kept silent for a long an instant, maybe finding a confirm in our eyes to the sentiments he had expressed.

I took advantage of that further pause to immerse myself in my most recent memories 

7.09.2022

Recuerdos de un Italiano en Londres-14

 

https://www.amazon.fr/Solo-como-una-piedra-Recuerdos-ebook/dp/B09Z6C5LKC/

Sìmbolo de la identidad de este pueblo era, todavía en ese momento, el Cokney.

Es un verdadero dialecto inglés, aunque tenga préstamos léxicos de yiddish, romaní y un acento distintivo que presenta una glotalización de la litera T, una pérdida de fricativas dentales y alteraciones de diptongo.

Esta jerga, que se dice que es un remanente del primer discurso en inglés de Londres, actúa como un elemento lingüístico de identificación grupal donde los londinenses orientales encuentran su lenguaje emocionalmente primario, una verdadera lengua materna.

Los otros ingleses lo encuentran muy divertido, un poco como les sucede a los italianos cuando escuchan el colorido dialecto románico de ciertos comediantes, desde Ettore Petrolini en adelante.

También en mi compañía había varios de estos “East Londoners”.

Uno de ellos, que solía trabajar en la venta de helados, era Bob, quien me había enseñado la limpieza y el mantenimiento de la máquina, y la preparación de hielados de crema y bebidas heladas.


No era muy alto (creo poco mas de mi metro y sessentacinco, con cabello claro, peinado con un pincel centrado en la línea, sus ojos eran verdes y muy móviles, sobre los rasgos de la cara, un poco irregular por dos incisivos superiores muy pronunciados. En su lóbulo izquierdo, naturalmente, llevaba un pequeño pendiente redondo de oro, que hacía tiempo que estaba de moda entre los chicos de Londres; la moda que estaba por llegar tambien en Italia. Su ropa era simple y bien arreglada. Sin embargo, prestaba especial atención a los zapatos y las camisetas, en los que, por lo general, sobresalían innumerables cadenas de oro, diferentes en apariencia y tamaño, como hacen nuestras mujeres cuando vesten los antiguos trajes típicos.

Bob era definitivamente un chico bueno. Muy intranquilo, siempre andaba por las tiendas cercanas, desde un saltador o un colega de tenderos. En su lugar de venta, que usualmente era el más rentable, durante la temporada alta tuvo uno o más ayudantes a los que descargaba, de manera casual y buena, la mayor parte de la carga de trabajo. Cuando sucedia que estaba en distribución, en las horas topicas, a veces era extraño.

Il romanzo di De André

https://deimerangoli.it/shop/sicuramente-ligure/  S erata all’insegna della poesia e della musica quella del 22 novembre organizzata dagli  ...