The sun and clouds cut colorful
bright reveries down on the coastal countryside.
“No God here, babe, this isn’t the
Italian Dream.” Verita said.
“Oh yeah, yeah, how about Utopia?
Maybe further?”
It seemed as if
the hills just kept rolling and colliding over one another, the dropping sun
closing in on the far reaching horizon on the cusp of creation and where the
land falls into the deep blue.
“You feel that breeze coming
around?”
“Mhm, I can almost smell the salt.”
The trees in the
Italian hills were plush and perfect from above it would be like a great green
carpet tossed over rolling rocks.
“This is where they used to bury
their dead, right here in these tombs.”
“Dark and dreary, not a place where
I’d like to lay my soul.”
We sat down in the near café
watching the heat rise, yet the soft cool breeze rustle the trees. True
happiness, true peace, I could feel it everywhere in me.
“What for tomorrow, en la manana?”
“The ocean, the sea, that deep blue
out there.” I looked over at Veritas, exhaling a drag, and uncorking the white.
As she poured 2 heavy glasses,
“Love.. if this isn’t living, I
don’t know a damn thing.”
“I think many would agree.”
The sun dropped,
and bottles clanked. The next morning rose, and with it the heat. Veritas and I
hopped on the scoot and rod the graceful winding cypress filled hills down to
the oceanic beauty. She clutched my waist and leaned in with me on every turn.
On one long stretch and I reared my head to the empty heaven sky and bugled
nothings up at the sun god, and we reached the beach without a soul around.
“Let’s run down
the water’s edge, right down with every vibration.” She proposed.
“Oh hell, sure.” We ran and tossed
in the water, then set up the big beach umbrella and hid from the sun. I pulled
out the gin, limes, and tonic, and started brewing.
“Oh hey love, I have some fun
little things I picked from Jupiter’s garden.” She hands me 2 pieces of angelic
looking remedies, and I threw them back. “Supposedly you’ll feel God, the holy
trinity, and maybe some of those good old boys of the past.” Veritas said.
“If you say so.”
Modern love I
thought, what a ride, for reality or for not, it’s hard to tell some of these
days. I sipped my gin and listened to the rhythm of the waves, and crashing,
and receding, and the dripping of life. It was a different time right then and
there, rolling down the edges of the red, white, and green, creating our own
stories, and possible truths, not caring about the whole damn world, but maybe
just reason, and the answer to the moving of time.
“Yeah.. I see that grin, how is
it?” Verita asked.
“Wild, but I think I’m here.”
“The Italian Dream, I’m pretty sure
we found it.” She said.
“Yeah, yeah maybe.”
“You see him?”
“I think I feel him, like a
quacking out there in the blue, I don’t know, is this the point? The reason and
all?”
“I think, not everyone sees the big
man, some see other things and feel other dreams.” She said.
“What? The ole boys? Them toga-ed cloud
dwellers?”
“Whatever fits with you, whatever
you want to see, right?”
“I don’t know Verita, what about
you?”
“I think it’s all bullshit, it’s
just the high.” Verita said with a smile and then with no warning to any heaven
she faded into that cool zephyr flowing off of the sea.
The gin still
poured, the palliatives worked, and it was all good and fine because it I knew
it was real at one point, and never actually too far from the truth. I took a
deep breath and looked at the unveiled sky, and then that’s when the strange
music started to play, but I swear I could’ve died in those days without a
worry in the world.
