Serendipity

Let me tell you a Mediterranean story no one has written yet.

It is about Aurora, a little girl. According to Italian language she shares her name with the sunrise. But Aurora’s childhood, perhaps her whole life, with the Sun has much more in common. It almost depends on it, not only because Aurora enjoyed spending her time in the sun, biking across the village where she lived with her family, but this is not the point, or maybe it is. Everything can make a point. Certainly the spot where to debate the argument is not here.

The true point among all points is that Aurora's village stood on the top of a green hill, in south of Italy. As it often happens, hill’s settlements are towered by a castle opening into a square, into the heart of the village, into ‘la piazza,’ as Italians would say and Giuseppe Garibaldi, the most Italian among Italians, would not disagree.

‘Piazza Garibaldi’ was indeed the heart of the village, the place where Aurora and her little friends used to play hide and seek in the sun, or under the moon when summer extended its days across the starry night.

On one of those long sunny afternoons, in the middle of a hide and seek game, no one could find Aurora anymore.

“She must have found a very hidden place,” her little friends decided.

A hidden place. 

A dark place.

‘Hidden,’ ‘dark.' These are unknown words to the dictionaries of rural areas. No matter how skillful in the lexicon you might be, you will more often hear words like ‘nice,’ ‘picturesque,’ ‘charming’ and their synonyms. Antonyms are not allowed. And here it comes another point.

In the village where people assumed to know everything and everyone, the list of the ‘unknown’ and ‘not charming’ labels started to grow.

Besides the fact that Aurora had left ‘Garibaldi’s Square’ alone, no one knew that her destination was the riverbank. But she did not leave ‘Garibaldi’s Square’ alone. Not really. She was not alone. Her bike was with her, as it always used to be. No way it could have left her just the afternoon of the disappearance, on one of those rare days marked by a name and a noble-double surname: Summer Solstice.

If the bike could speak it would tell of the eight-year-old-boy waiting at the riverbank. Waiting for Aurora to come.

He introduced himself as Slunce, whose name’s meaning is more then a serendipity.

“It means ‘The Sun’s Son,’ he said.

No lie in the translation to English, no attempt to show off made up by a little boy in order to impress a pretty little girl.

But let me explain one thing. Actually, what Slunce wanted was to impress Aurora. Because she was the girl come with the Summer Solstice, the girl supposed to help him.

The eight-year-old-girl known by everyone as the youngest biker of the village; the girl playing truant from primary school to run after lizards and wild boars, screaming their scientific names to the four winds; that girl was now supposed to help Slunce.

Said in this way the whole picture does not sound as it should.

Let us hear the rest of story by him, by Slunce, and you will understand the point, the true point.

“The Sun’s Son,’ he said. “I am cursed,” he went on lowering his head.

“I am Aurora,” she said ignoring that the boy knew her very well. “What curse do you have?” she asked.

“I am cursed to live forever in this place. Alone. I can go out only after the sunset, and I m tired of it. I want to join my family, my people." His little head turned left and right, looking for something. "We lived there, until my village was flooded and everybody died; everybody except me.”-

“The villag_?” was about to say Aurora but she could not.

There was no village on the riverbank, never had been. And yet there was. Before her eyes. It goes without any saying that here the point is not too much in the ‘antiquity,’ neither in the ‘dwelling/settlement.’ The true point is the unknown. How can something be unknown to a place where everybody knows everyone and everything?

Well, the ratio between questions and answers is not always satisfying, and this is one of the ‘not always’ situations.

But let us go back to the true point. Let us hear what Aurora and Slunce have to say in their pragmatic children’s language.

“I want to help you. Just tell me how, Slunce.”-

“Tell my story to the children of your village. Let them know about their ancient ancestries. Tell the adults of your village to bring their children to the riverbank, to smell the early morning scent of the wildflowers. Please, do it.”-

“Only this?” Aurora asked.

“Only this,” Slunce said.

He added other things. He added that the source of his coursing had wanted to delete the memory of his people from the world, sparing him from death only by mistake. Cursing him as a revenge.

“I knew you would come.”-

“How?” Aurora asked.

“The Sun’s Son always meets its Sunrise.”