Freely inspired from
enchanting places,
and unique experiences
Table of Contents
Title Page
Story of a Ghost Town
Story of a Ghost Town
Prologue
I – Inauspicious Omens
II- Interlude
III – Nuixib Yuum K’iin
Final Note
INDEX
The events contained in this work are the result of the author’s imagination Even though the mentioned places are real, they are used only for narration purposes. Any reference to actual events or existing or existed persons, are purely coincidental.
Cover “The ghost town” by Rosilda zoe
Website: www.facebook.com/zoeartrosilda
Photographs contained in this work
are the Author’s properties
and they are protected by copyright
I thank my brother Antonio for the valuable suggestion,
and all those who contributed
more or less (un) consciously
Francesco Brasiello
Story of a Ghost Town
Translation by
Franca Cristina Novello
Prologue
It hasn’t been easy to remember... I would rather forget. I hope for you that you won’t be plagued by the same nightmare...or maybe, on the contrary, I hope to convey all the moods I felt in those moments. It would be extremely tempting to know that I affected your dreams, the more obscure ones.
Find a quite place, far from everyone ...lights off and closed doors...don’t forget the windows, take care that they also are tightened. I’ll take you by hand in forgotten places...don’t be frightened...it’s too soon now. Your journey is going to start...
It had to be the naturalistic parenthesis in our summertime, but, instead, we remember it for very different reasons.
I never ever found myself in such terrifying situations and frankly I do not wish it to anyone.
Overall it was a nice day, apart the grisly epilogue, I mean. Of course the trekking excursion remained just a fantasy, because of the uncertain weather. Nevertheless we could be satisfied with the car tour in the Pollino National Park. This immense green lung, wild and mysterious, with its stories, its legends, its villages, its inhabitants. We were on our way back, excited for having spent so many hours in that fantastic natural oasi.
We had almost reached our last stage suggested by our morning knowledge. A quick visit and then we would be back at home.
We followed the directions, map in hand, when we finally spotted some houses.
“Welcome to ***”...how many villages welcome those who visit theme? Essentially all, you could think, and probably it is so. Well, for us the entrance in the village had been completely different...there was no welcome.
Now, imagine for a moment.
Any reason urges you to knock at the door of a stranger.
A person opens it, and... you immediately understand that there wouldn’t be any welcome, nor invitation to come in. Would you have the courage to enter? Unless you are very rude, I’d say you wouldn’t. And if we add that you feel there is something wrong there, something that upsets you... Would you enter?
Perhaps it would had been better if we had gone away as soon as possible, turn the car and go back to our lives.
After all we are speaking about a village...what ever could have happened?
Story of a Ghost Town
I – Inauspicious Omens
“We warn that for security reasons the village is fully under video surveillance”.
This is the huge sign that welcomes those who are entering the town that was supposed to be inhabited, but somebody told us that it wasn’t...
“Old Village historic Center” indicate an arrow sign ahead: -Maybe is the Old Village Center to be uninhabited- I think and say to the others.
It just seemed unlikely to us that only the historical center could be uninhabited.
We surely misunderstood or they gave us an erroneous information.
We follow the indications that brings us out of the village.
We walk quite a long way: -Surely we went the wrong direction-, I think.
We are about to turn back when we see another tourist indication: “Old Town centre 3 Km”. Could it be so far away a village centre?
We continue incredulous through uninhabited mountain routes. Three kilometers uphill are not few, and we are already far from the village. Where the hell are we going? Why a village centre is so far away from the village itself? And why the area is fully video surveilled?
We continue through uninhabited mountain routes.
With this questions in my mind we continue on this anonymous road, untill we start a typical street of medieval villages, paved with stones. On one side a fence that looks recent, on the other side a long series of modern metal streetlamps, English style.
The light breeze laden with woodland damp that we just left, give space to a more dry air where predominate the pungent smell of chive herbs.
The path is long, no noise nearby, only streetlamps that follow one another with regular intervals. We begin to notice something strange. All the lanterns have broken glass... everyone, without exception. Some of them are even bent.
Is it possible that someone came here to breaks all the streetlamps? It seems silly, they really are too many.
Then it comes to our mind something that said our friend from Piano Ruggio that same morning, while wine flowed undisturbed and goliardic; something that we barely remember, that seems we heard from far away, but which we can retrieve in our memories.
We reached the point where we started off for our excursion in the morning and the weather began to deteriorate hastily. We stopped nearby the Refuge in Piano Ruggio to stretch our legs and ask for informations. The time to take shelter under a balcony and the sky came down in buckets. There we met Ernesto, Arturo and Luca, and it was immediately good feeling. Apart from the old Luca who was there to sell small handmade wood sculptures, I actually didn’t know why the other two were there. They certainly had something to do with the Refuge. A guitar, a bottle of wine some local cheese and a bit of home-made bred were enough to create a magical alchemy in a few minutes. The excursion on the mountain that we decided some days before was shelved, in the suggestion made by our new friends, because the clouds were low and menacing. We could clearly see that the bad weather hung over the surrounding mountains, just the heights that we had decided to climb. So we asked what else there was to see in the surroundings, as surely we weren’t going to spend all the rest of the day in the Refuge. We started with the intention to explore and, walking or by car, we would have explored somewhere. It was in that moment that we heard for the first time about Laino: ‹‹Laino Castello is a deserted village, beautiful to look at, but it is uninhabited. People left after the earthquake in the 80, and now is a ghost town›› said Ernesto. A sentence thrown out amid the usual phrases and questions you make when you meet someone for the first time “where are you from?”, “what do you do?” with the background of musical notes strummed by myself. Vibrations of strings, sounds that color the atmosphere, polyphonic melodies. It took just few seconds for Ernesto to understand the notes I was strumming and when I began to sing the first verse of Down in a Hole, we heard the intoxicating and addictive melody of a double quite respectable voice perhaps made more fascinating by the wine that was flowing copiously by now. At that point all the talks ended... till the extinction of the last note. We greeted everyone and started on the road again.
An earthquake, then, this explains why the town (that is not a village centre, but a village itself) is so far from the inhabited village. It explains als
o the broken street lamps... broken by the earthquake? No, that’s not possible! The street lamps are recent, as we can see noticing the energetic-saving lamp bulbs, too recent to think that they were from the 80’s! Is it really possible that someone had gone there to break them all? Can it be a a way to prevent for getting too close? Can the sign at the entrance of the village have the same purpose?... It’s all so strange. Maybe we are self influencing.
We continue to follow the road slowly, we’re expecting for something to clear our minds, sooner or later. But all is silent, apart from the noise of the car, and nobody in sight, no voices, no sounds. As if we were in a bubble of water, it seems to hear distant sounds, in a muffled way.
The road ends in a parking. There is already a car. We park next to it, but nobody nearby, no voice, no sounds. On the left there are two tourist signs: “Tuvola’s water source” indicating to go down at left, and “Historic Centre” indicating the right. Except that now to the right, there is also a low gate that blocks access and other two signs; one says “No Trespassing” and the other says “Video surveillance”. Again. There is also the symbol of pedestrian ban and, below, another inscription says “Except authorized”. Authorized to enter an historic town centre? Authorized by whom? Video surveilled area? That’s impossible, we are in the middle of nowhere and there are no cameras. Or, at least, we can’t see them. Clearly they want to keep the curious away... away from what? Why put up a sign to advertise the old town and then specify that you need to get a permit? We cross the gate with some hesitation: ‹‹At best, they’ll send us away›› I say.
‹‹Hoping they don’t shoot us›› says Antonio.
And, indeed, it wouldn’t be the first time.
He was referring to a funny incident happened some years ago. We actually never knew if they were real shooting, but as they say in some cases, better not to ask many questions and cut and run like crazy.
...a low gate that blocks access and a sign that says “Video surveilled area”; there is the symbol of pedestrian ban and, below, another inscription says “Except authorized”.
That time it was not trespassing, or at least I don’t think so. We were looking for some wood to make bonfire that night on the beach, I and a dozen friends including Antonio. The search along the river Abatemarco had not been very profitable, so we continued to wander here and there. We were searching on one of the inland narrow roads, near the 18th National Road, where tourist villages take turns to homes of the locals and to uninhabited areas. We just ended on one of these areas, when our attentive eyes saw some abandoned (so we thought) wood-boards, put in disorder, a few meters away from the roadside. We stopped immediately, got out of the cars to head towards our salvation for the posthumous bonfire. Some of us managed to get some wood, but shortly thereafter we heard shouts accompanied by a gunshot and then yet by another. This left us stunned, those who were halfway, dropped to the ground firewood collection, soon we entered the cars and flew away from there.
Antonio is one of those summer friends I’ve known for a lifetime; from those shots has been a long time. Now he is an engineer with a passion, like mine, for hiking and discovering new places. I’m sure he remembers that incident as if it happened yesterday.
Despite the slight hesitation, we are past the gate. In front of us we see a castle perched on a rocky outcrop. It appears black, surrounded by those orange nettings you see at construction sites. They are decaying and discolored., who knows how long they are there. Along the road, to our right, we find another tourist sign. This time it explains the history of the city which stops precisely to the 80s, when it was abandoned after the earthquake. Just while we’re quickly reading what’s written on it, something happens that chills our blood. A screem coming from aside the castle. A kind of a lament, a shout. It wasn’t similar to the one that we heard in the episode I told you before (the one about the bonfire); this one had a slight echo, much more spectral. The time to hear it, and it already vanished. We turn in that direction, but we don’t see anybody. ‹‹It’s better to go›› says Antonio.We take a few steps back and go towards the gate. When we’re about to exit, we start a little discussion: ‹‹Who was that?››
‹‹Someone who saw us getting in››
‹‹They don’t want us to continue; we risk, here››. Are we sure that there’s somebody there? We heard something, but was it a voice? One of my companion is sure about it, the other one less. Who can be up here? Maybe the voice wasn’t so close... as you know in the open spaces, the sound travels faster. Who knows where it came from. We go back towards the castle, even though our friend Anna disagrees. I find myself to be the most daring, the other two follow me a few meters away. We notice that on the right there are, on the ground beside the road, some stones placed in a circle, with some extinguished embers. Someone has lit a fire there, but...who? The road turns right. As soon as we turn the corner another sign appears in front of us: “Video Surveilled Area”... Again? It’s absurde! This area is not video surveilled, there are no cameras, there is nothing, it’s just a road of stones, rocks and soil. The sign was put there to keep away the most curious, to instill the fear of being seen. By now we understood what’s the game. We have nothing to fear about. So I go ahead saying to the others: ‹‹Come on! There’s noth...››.The words choke in my throat at the sight of what is collected by my eye as soon as I turn my head to the left, toward the castle. Something that only I can see from that point of view. It was done on purpose, no doubt about it! My friends still don’t know. I call them in a mixture of disbelief, excitement, but, above all, dismayed. The road goes next to the castle and, on a low hill at its feet, there is a cross on a pillar of porous rock, which is based upon another bigger rock of the same type. All of a surreal mixed rock and russet color. Something very old, it looks like a sentry, as if to signify:
...a cross on a pillar of porous rock which is based on another bigger rock of the same type.
“From here, from where you are warned to go
away...it all starts”.
Anna wants to leave: ‹‹We shouldn’t be here››.
I want to go on just a little longer, because the road curves: ‹‹Come on, let’s give a look!››.
The suggestion has taken possession of us, we are self-mesmerized, but all our senses are alerted. Even a mosquito could makes us jump.We walk beside the hill with the cross on: another fireplace with extinguished embers. This time we touch it with caution and, in fact, we can feel it’s still warm. The castle stand imposingly over us. It is rather disturbing with its unformed volume, probably due to the numerous collapses. At the rock base on which it stands, we see that there are natural caves and there we find numerous fireplaces with embers.
There are a lot of these. Then, as we see, there are also fences, but what are they for? What the hell was going on there? Stop! We cannot go further, let’s go back: ‹‹We shouldn’t be here››.
We are really determined to leave but a delicate and subtle voice interrupt us. It looks like a little girl’s voice, we can barely hear: ‹‹mum...››
There’s somebody! We stand for some seconds, the innocence of that voice encourage me.
We look ahead, expecting to see a friendly figures.
Maybe they are the owners of the car, if they went further it means that it’s possible to go on. There’s nothing to worry about, that’s better...
Nobody!!! There’s nobody...
The seconds passes inexorable, but everything is still. We can’t even hear the rustle of the wind that had risen just before, and birds stopped their singing. I’m feeling as if I was light-years far away from where we really are, as if I was looking from above, from a distance. I do not perceive anything more of that place. How did we get stuck in this surreal situation? What are we doing here? Why we don’t see anyone? We heard a voice, who the hell was that? Quick thoughts emerge in my mind, and I feel as if that voice had drunk my soul and, with it, my swift and curious fantasies, that now roam in search
of answers.
That word “mum” seems to rumble in my head. The relief quickly leave place to doubt and then bewilderment. Where did it come from?
We look astonished to one another. None of us dared to speak, no one had the courage to call that child, or to give a voice to see if there was people in the vicinity. No one dared to move, we were motionless.
‹‹Where did it come from?››
We all heard the voice, it was surely real. Yet that deathly silence, after the sound of that delicate voice leaking out of nowhere, in an abandoned place like that, had something funereal, it was even more incomprehensible of the very voice. It was shivering.
Anna, fortunately, breaks the ice:
‹‹ Oh boys, pleas let’s go away, there’s something wrong here! When bad things happen, sites absorb the pain of people, and I believe in it. We wandered too much. We shouldn’t be here!››
She’s perfectly right, there’s something wrong in all this situation! Only Anna could give voice to what, in the end, I was thinking.
Anna always had this sensitivity towards nature, but also towards what is (or she thinks there is) beyond nature.
Ever since she was fifteen she began having those girlish new age attitudes, with her marijuana cigarettes and mental trips. And even as a child she was always strongly attracted by nature. She was able to stay motionless on her own knees, staring at a butterfly, just to snatch all the nuances that characterized it.
Then began the readings about inner spiritual forces, karma and energies that surround and influence us. Other times we saw her with crossed legs and closed eyes simply thinking, or meditating, if you prefer. She wouldn’t lack to go swimming endlessly in that indigo sea, typical of the tyrrhenian Calabria at twilight time, followed by long rests literally lying on the sea, off the coast. For a long time we didn’t hear from her, and by now it’s quite rare to see each other during summer holidays. I don’t really know what’s her job, I think she studied psychology. Overall she is a very simple woman, but also deep and interesting. An excellent companion for explorative excursions.
Story of a Ghost Town Page 1
