The Prison

by Stefano Pastor

  I couldn’t believe he was weeping. Among the sobs, he asked me: “What will happen to us?”

  I hugged him.

  What was my life, what would happen now? What was I?

  If I wasn’t human then what was I? A stupid hen who only likes to lay eggs? But for whom? What were those eggs for me? My children? What happened to them? What was the co-op?

  And again, why did I exist? What was the reason for everything?

  Unnecessary, useless questions.

  Diego made love to me, he penetrated me knowing that I lay eggs. I gave him pleasure and he gave it to me. We made love wildly, as if it was the last time, then collapsed exhausted in my arms and burst into tears again. He repeated the question: “What about us?”

  That’s where I decided to escape, to leave.

  The co-op truck came five days later.

  It was five difficult days, complicated, as if the shadow of an inevitable fate weighed on our heads. Me and Diego rarely spoke, and never about my circumstances, but we made love more and more often.

  My friends understood that something was wrong, I couldn’t hide it. Gossip flourished, with a bit of anxiety. The fear that I had talked too much with Diego and that he had become too important for me. Mr. Bosetti was the only one not to notice it, but now he didn’t notice nothing at all.

  I laid more eggs, I couldn’t help it.

  When the truck came, there were twenty-seven.

  The truck driver was the same that came last time. He checked the production, then looked at me with a strange smile.

  “Mr. Bosetti’s replacement will come in a couple of weeks, they are still looking at the candidates. For this time, you will still have to be satisfied by me.”

  It was then, just before that man stretched out his hand and began to undress me that Diego attacked him. He was behind him, rolling him to the ground. Then he began to kick him wildly. “Bloody rooster, you won’t put those hands on her! She is mine! Do you understand? Mine!”

  And he continued to strike him whilst the driver tried to defend himself by firing insults and threats.

  Diego lifted him and slammed him against a pole. “What did you do to her?” he yelled. “Why is she like this? What about her children?”

  But Diego had underestimated him, and very much so. Nor did I have any idea of his strength. When he recovered from the surprise the driver exploded. He gave Diego forceful shove and Diego flew against the opposite wall, then raced towards him, roaring. It looked like a beast. No, not really, better to say a cock that defends the territory.

  He grabbed him again for one arm and threw him in the air.

  Diego, luckily, landed in the hay.

  “You must stay away from the hens!” the driver shouted. “They’re not for you! They are private property!” And then, stronger: “They are ours!”

  He pointed at me. “Look at her! Have you ever seen anything more stupid? More useless? Only good to lay eggs all day! Isn’t it pathetic? Why do you care about such a thing?”

  With rage Diego tried to get up. The driver gave him a kick in his face, sending him lying on the floor. Diego lay motionless, weeping and breathing with a strange gurgling.

  “You didn’t have to get involved in these things. You looked for trouble. You had to leave them alone. You don’t go around to steal in someone else’s barn.”

  He approached Diego, threatening. Diego was almost unconscious, could no longer defend himself.

  That’s why I did it.

  I grabbed the pitchfork and screamed wildly. I ran towards him, holding the pitchfork in front of me. The driver could just turn around, and the sharp fork teeth entered his belly. With a force I didn’t think I had, I continued my run, until I reached the barn wall. The pitchfork not only passed through him, but got stuck in the wood behind him as well.

  In the face of the man there was only absolute astonishment, while life was abandoning him.

  Then I ran to Diego, fearing the worst, but he was still alive. Beaten up, bloody, with two broken teeth and a black eye, but alive and conscious. I hugged him and kissed him all over. He kissed me back.

  We fled that same night. I didn’t take almost anything with me.

  We waited for the darkness then left the village. Nobody tried to stop us. I was worried the co-op would have found us, that they would send someone to investigate, once they’ve seeing the truck that wasn’t going back, but it didn’t happen.

  We walked, went into the woods surrounding the village, but we couldn’t get far. After only half an hour I had to stop, because I couldn’t help it.

  There was still an egg inside me, and I had to lay it down. It was a need.

  It was the most difficult time for me because Diego had to be there. I was nervous, terrified, certain I would lose him now, that he would run away. Instead, he surprised me, behaved as if it was a real birth, not a common and mundane function. He jumped around me, trembling, waiting to see the egg coming out. And when the miracle finally happened, at least he defined it so, he wasn’t at all disgusted, he even lifted it in his arm the egg and cleaned it. Then he asked, “Can we keep it?”

  I was horrified. It was an egg, just an egg! Nothing more than an egg! I couldn’t consider him a son, I never did! And he wasn’t even his father!

  I started shaking my head, hysterical. Hold that egg? Maybe even see it opening? Find out what’s in it? Accepting the idea of having laid thousands of them in the past, without knowing what happened to them? No, no, no, it was just work, one thing, one object, no more.

  Then I answered with a firm: “No!”

  After an animated conversation we decided to take it back. We had no idea what they would do with it, but leave it in the woods meant to condemn him to death.

  So, in the end I accepted, exhausted, and went back to the barn.

  The village was silent, no one noticed about us, no one ambushed us neither. I took a moment to look at the full baskets, then took the egg from Diego’s hands and I put it together with all the others.

  Only then we were completely free and we left.

  Diego and I became a couple.

  In his city, among his people. Diego’s parents accepted me immediately, and also his brothers. They said Diego had been lucky to find a beautiful and smart wife like me. But I wasn’t sure it was the truth.

  Perhaps in their eyes Diego wasn’t beautiful, but he wasn’t so common as he believed. Together we were a well-matched couple. We were special and we knew we were.

  In a few years we realized his dream, putting on a hardware shop. At first there were gossips, because I looked a lot older than him, but as the years passed by and Diego began to grow old, things settled down. Because, with Diego’s amazement, I looked exactly like the first day I arrived.

  The time came when he was so old to look like my dad, but even this didn’t scratch our love.

  Yes, because we were a happy couple, a really happy couple.

  The only thing missing was the fact that we couldn’t have kids, and we missed that very much. In those moments, when we talked about it, I felt a shadow between us, the egg that he would have saved. And then I wondered if it did open, what was inside, if he could have been the son he wanted so much in it.

  And for a moment, a single moment, I thought about all those eggs, that huge amount of eggs that I abandoned.

  Diego died at the age of seventy, leaving me alone.

  It was then that it started again.

  Not as a conscious act, but as a feeling that insinuated in my thoughts.

  I’ve been happy, really happy. As long as he lived next to me, the village and its inhabitants had not populated my dreams. We never talked about it, they were not important. A mystery that he would never have solved.

  But now that he left me alone, now that I no longer feel his caresses, his kisses, something started to crack in my life, giving me almost physical pain.

  Something I needed more and more, day after day.

  And it was not th
e village and its inhabitants, but something more essential, natural. The eggs.

  I wanted to lay the eggs again. It was a physical need that torn me.

  I had not done it since that night in the woods, I had not heard the stimulus, because Diego was filling that void. But now that he was dead, the need had grown to the point of undoing my will.

  I knew I would have found all of them there in the village, even though almost fifty years had passed since then, I was sure that time was still there and every year was just like one moment.

  I also knew that by surrendering to this desire I would give up everything, I would return to be the usual stupid hen and my life with Diego would lose meaning. Perhaps I would have forgotten it, considering our existence together as a dream.

  Yes, I knew I would lose myself, completely.

  Yet I stayed up at nights looking out over the window, looking at the far woods where my home was. And in those moments the barn seemed wonderful. A safe, secure place.

  Every day that temptation is getting stronger. I look at those woods and I suffer. I know they would welcome me with open arms, that nobody would punish me. If they didn’t look for me it’s because they always knew I’d be back, time doesn’t matter to them. That stupid rooster I killed was nothing and they would never give up a production expert like me. I know they appreciate me, that…

  As I do my luggage, I think about Diego, but I find it difficult to recall his face. The features are blurred, as if it was just a dream. I know I was happy with him, but I’ll be happy again, as soon as I’ll get to my farm.

  I’m already picturing the party they will do for me, my friends, and all the questions they’ll ask me. I look forward to starting to work again. I’m excited, just like the first day.

  I take my luggage and go out, but I don’t feel nostalgic, just a big excitement.

  I’m coming back home.

  January 2010

  FISH FROM THE SKY

  Translation by Paolo Tullii

  I once saw a flying fish.

  More than one, to tell the truth.

  No, I wasn’t drunk. I didn’t even know what alcohol was, I was only 9.

  It was night, but I wasn’t sleeping. It wasn’t a dream.

  How could I have slept? I had never seen such a sky before. It was the first time.

  I was born in a city, you couldn’t see the stars there. I had no clue there were so many, just like Discovery Channel.

  It was the first night of our holidays, the house was by the lakeside.

  There was a porch, and a dock right after. Water and mountains all around, nothing else. It was magic to me.

  We got back early, exhausted by the journey. But that sky was there, so immeasurable. We were above a thousand meters from sea level, the air had a weird scent. Inebriating.

  There were no lights. No other houses could be seen. There were just them, the stars. Millions of them, as bright as I had ever seen.

  I was counting them, mouth wide open, looking out my room’s window, wearing my pajamas.

  I loved them, obviously. Being nine years old, the sky is still able to possess you. To canalize all your thoughts. Brightly colored galaxies. Comets.

  Fish.

  They looked like birds, but had an odd motion.

  They were coming down from the sky. Swimming.

  Only a kid is able to accept that magnificence, without asking why. I did that. Having my mouth already open, the amazement was contained.

  It was a flock, getting closer and closer. They were swimming in the sky, coming towards me. At least, that was my impression.

  They weren’t all the same species, they had different shapes and sizes, colors varied too. Some were gaudy, gorgeous.

  Herd or flock that it was, it still had a destination, and that destination was my house, or rather, my room. Unaware of the danger, I didn’t try to move. The closer they got, the better I could see them. They were slowing down, but still going very fast, and I was too shocked to react when they rushed on to me.

  They sped beside me, without even brushing me, in a rippling motion. They were swimming, no doubt about it. Swimming in the air.

  When only darkness was before me, I turned around. I did it suddenly, certain that I wouldn’t see anything.

  They were ghosts, figments of my imagination.

  But no. They were there, they invaded the room.

  The impression of being inside an aquarium was alienating. The aquarium was really there, but it was empty. We found it so. I filled it with water, expecting to fill it with fish I would have caught in the lake. They ignored it.

  They were only interested in the table lamp on my bedside table. The only light on. They gravitated towards it, without ever distancing too much from it. A fat fish, the fattest of them all, had settled right below the light. It didn’t move. Around it, were gravitating seven or eight smaller fish, so fast that I had trouble even counting them.

  There were two more well distinguished species. The butterfly fish, as I called them, had bright colors of all the rainbow’s shades, long and sinuous fins, and they moved lazily, without showing any interest for anything. The other species was very different. Bigger than the satellite-fish, but still smaller than the fat fish, they were as flat as soles, and had shark-like teeth. They looked like piranhas, even though their appearance was completely different. They were threatening, so I kept the distances.

  Ignoring me, they would never distance too much from the light, except for when a butterfly fish would adventure towards me. Then they spring in like missiles and went to fetch it. The butterfly fish didn’t seem so impressed, but he went back to its ranks.

  Oh yeah, they had a military order, I immediately understood that. “What are you?”

  I whispered, what a strange thing for me to do, and my voice was raspy and unrecognizable.

  The answer was obvious to me. “You’re aliens, right? Are you coming from space?”

  The fish acted just like fish, because, in the end, they were fish. The piranhas formed a solid wall, to protect the rest of the group. Even the butterfly fish considered it was safer to hold back inside the perimeter.

  Alien fish! Coming from another planet.

  They were invading Earth!

  As an invasion, it was a bit miserable, but it could have just been the vanguard. It was my duty to investigate, defend Earth. First of all, understanding what they were.

  “Do you understand me? Do you speak my language?”

  My interlocutors were fish, and even if I was a kid, I could not act like an idiot. I sighed.

  “If you’re not alien, then why are you flying?”

  They were clearly aliens, fish can’t fly in our world. Knowing that, I had to find out what their intentions were.

  “Who’s your leader? Who’s in charge?”

  I had already seen that scene in a movie. But the aliens weren’t fish. I wonder why aliens always had a vaguely humanoid form.

  These ones didn’t.

  Nobody seemed to govern, except for the piranhas, but it was obvious that those were just soldiers. The butterfly fish were more striking, but they didn’t seem to have much of an influence. The satellite fish were too small, and of little relevance. Going by exclusion, the only one left was that incredibly fat fish.

  It settled right below the lamp, and seemed motionless, it hardly moved its fins. It was just a few tens of centimeters long, but it looked like a giant in comparison to his little friends. I couldn’t get what the satellite fish were doing, but they were always around it.

  I tried again. “You understand what I say?”

  I articulated the words well, seeming like an idiot as a result. I also made the mistake of getting too close, and was immediately surrounded by the piranhas.

  “I’m just a kid!”, I defended, as to mean I was harmless, forgetting that in just a few hours I would have been fishing in the lake.

  Retreating secured me, they immediately backed out. But they cut me out from m
y bed, that I couldn’t reach anymore. Not that I was sleepy, of course.

  “Fish that swim in the air”, I murmured. I had never heard of anything like that. They don’t teach you that kind of thing in school.

  Yet, nothing was alien about them, they were just fish.

  The bookshelf was beside the bed, I moved closer with caution.

  I could maybe find them, find out what they were. It was dad’s encyclopedia, the one he used as a kid. A whole volume dedicated to the inhabitants of the sea.

  They put up with me, but I immediately regretted my idea.

  In that darkness, I couldn’t see a thing, not even the pictures. Getting closer to the table lamp was impossible. The only alternative was turning the light on, but my parents would have noticed that if they were still awake.

  I still tried, certain of them being in the dream’s world, where fish couldn’t fly.

  The reaction was unexpected, even if I should have predicted it. As soon as the globe lit up, and the room was flooded by the light, the fish went crazy. The organization shattered, to the point that even the satellite fish abandoned the table lamp. The all headed towards that more powerful light source.

  The butterfly fish were the first to move, and I realized they had no perception of the danger. The piranhas came right after, but they didn’t try to stop them this time, they were also attracted by the light. They passed past them, reaching the light first. The satellite fish were small but very fast, they squeezed through their companions.

  Luckily, the light bulb was covered, they would have been burnt otherwise.

  My mouth was open, yet again. They didn’t come to me, it was the light of the table lamp that attracted them. The only visible light, for miles and miles. Feeble, far, but they still perceived it.

  They were acting like moths, nothing like fish. But deep inside, what did I know, fish could act like that too.

  I took advantage of the situation to browse the book. As well-lighted as they were, I could study them better. They were enslaved by the light, they didn’t even notice me.