U-TURN (a 55-word story)


Someone had left the engine running while buying a newspaper.

Reno stole their car.

Unfortunately, it was his stepmother’s.

He found a letter inside.

She was pleading with Reno’s headmaster not to expel him.

Words smudged by tears.

Reno never missed school again.

His stepmother died young, but not before seeing Reno graduate.

In Law.



Alberico Collina

THE MODIGLIANI HOAX (a 55-word story)


Leghorn, 1984, the local Council dredged a canal for Modigliani’s “lost heads”, sculptures that the artist had apparently thrown into the canal frustrated by his lack of success.

And the local Council found them.

Eminent Art critics deemed them masterpieces.

But students released a videotape of them sculpting the heads.

And the critics fell silent.



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DRESS CODE (a 55-word story)


“We need time for your defense, but trial is tomorrow,” said Mario’s lawyer, “and you will be convicted. This judge is inflexible.”

“Leave it to me”, said Mario.

The next day, Mario wore surfer shorts.

The judge postponed the trial, saying, “Next time the accused will dress in a manner more respectful of this court.”



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THE CONFESSOR (a 55-word story)


They called him “The Confessor”.

Given enough time, he could make any suspect talk.

Nobody at the police station knew it, but before being a police detective, Sbarra had been a clergyman.

Back when Sbarra had been a priest, someone confessed his desire to kill him.

And shot him.

Sbarra survived.

But he changed jobs.



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A HERO'S BESTSELLER (a 55-word story)


George Dupre had posed as a dumb mechanic in a French village during world War II.

At night, he’d sabotage German military targets.

He’d been caught and tortured but hadn’t revealed any secrets.

His story became a fascinating book, “The man who wouldn’t talk.”

A hero’s bestseller.

The problem was none of it was true.



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THE DEVIL AND THE BEAUTY (a 55-word story*)


A man asked for shelter.

The family agreed if he helped them crack nuts.

A girl chatted with the visitor, who kept shells, dropping kernels on the floor.

Picking them up, someone noticed the stranger had hoofs.

He called the priest.

Seeing the clergyman, the visitor scratched the girl’s face and leaped out the window.



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*this story is based on a folktale from Valle d’Aosta.

Note: Does the devil blame the beautiful young woman for distracting him, which makes him give himself away? Or is this tale a warning to young women not to fall for mysterious men, however attractive they may seem? Maybe both.

From Darkness

This memory from Kapuscinski's childhood is chilling in its details.

At night, he and his younger sister are made to sleep fully-clothed because their mother fears they may be deported at any time.

What follows is an excerpt from Imperium, where, in few words, Kapuscinski conveys the nocturnal panic that grips a family, whose only fault was to live in the wrong place at the onset of World War Two.

He makes us see and hear the "slowly rolling" deportation "wooden wagon" that his mother (like "other mothers") spies behind drawn curtains.

A caravan of Death that pierces through darkness and becomes a poignant metaphor for war.

For all wars.

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"Even if we do sleep, we're on pins and needles. We are asleep, but we hear everything. Sometimes near morning we hear the rumble of a wooden wagon. The noise swells in the darkness, and by the time the wagon passes our house, the racket is like that of some infernal machine. Mother walks to the window on tiptoe and carefully draws aside the curtain. It is possible that at this very moment other mothers on Wesloa Street and doing the same thing. they see the slowly rolling wagon, on it the huddled figures, the Red Army men walking behind it, and - behind them - darkness once again. The neighbour ... tells Mother that it is as if these wagons are rolling over her. The next day she aches everywhere."

from Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski (translated from the Polish by Klara Glowczewska)

Just Once


The opening lines of Maintains Pereira, a novel by Antonio Tabucchi, here translated by Patrick Creagh, foreshadow a resurrection of sorts.

In the bloody days of Salazar's dictatorship in Portugal, two young and desperate lovers enlist the help of Pereira.

Pereira is an unlikely protagonist, a conservative widower, obsessed by death and his obesity, who will find the will to live again, by changing the desperate couple's fate.

And putting his life on the line, Pereira will taste youth and drink adventure in the shadow of military oppression.

And he'll learn what it's like to have something worth dying for.

Just once.


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"Pereira maintains he met him one summer’s day. A fine fresh sunny summer’s day and Lisbon was sparkling. It would seem that Pereira was in his office biting his pen,the editor-in-chief was away on holiday while he himself was saddled with getting together the culture page, because the Lisboa was now to have a culture page and he had been given the job. But he, Pereira, was meditating on death. On that beauteous summer day, with the sun beaming away and the sea-breeze off the Atlantic kissing the treetops, and a city glittering, literally glittering beneath his window, and a sky of such a blue as never was seen, Pereira maintains, and of a clarity almost painful to the eyes, he started to think about death. Why so? Pereira cannot presume to say. Maybe because when he was little his father owned an undertaker’s establishment with the gloomy name of Pereira La Dolorosa, maybe because his wife had died of consumption some years before, maybe because he was fat and suffered from heart trouble and high blood pressure and the doctor had told him that if he went on like this he wouldn’t last long. But the fact is that Pereira began dwelling on death, he maintains. And by chance, purely by chance, he started leafing through a magazine. It was a literary review, though with a section devoted to philosophy. Possibly an avant-garde review, Pereira is not definite on this point, but with a fair share of Catholic contributors. And Pereira was a Catholic, or at least at that moment he felt himself a Catholic, a good Roman Catholic, though there was one thing he could not bring himself to believe in, and that was the resurrection of the body. Of the soul yes, of course, for he was certain he had a soul; but all that flesh of his, the fat enveloping his soul, no, that would not rise again and why should it?, Pereira asked himself. All the blubber he carted around with him day in day out, and the sweat, and the struggle of climbing the stairs, why should all that rise again? No, Pereira didn’t fancy it at all, in another life, for all eternity, so he had no wish to believe in the resurrection of the body. And he began to leaf through the magazine, idly, just because he was bored, he maintains,and came across an article headed: ‘From a thesis delivered last month at the University of Lisbon we publish this reflection on death. The author is Francesco Monteiro Rossi, who graduated last month from the University of Lisbon with a First in Philosophy. We here give only an excerpt from his essay, since he may well make further contributions to this publication."

from Maintains Pereira by Antonio Tabucchi (translated by Patrick Creagh)

Eloquent Madness


A bored middle-aged schoolteacher forever disappointed by the uninspired essays his students churn out, discovers eloquence in the writings of one of his pupils. Its author is a quiet and curious youth, whose compelling words will become the academic’s justification of a lifetime of teaching. This is In the House - Dans la maison (2012), a film directed by Francois Ozon, and written by him, based on a play by Juan Mayorga.

The schoolmaster will become increasingly consumed by his pupil and the latter's compositions. In a bizarre turn of events, he will go to any lengths to create and defend situations in order to hand his student a decent story. Ultimately, this will turn the academic's world upside down and will take its toll on his work, his relationships, and his mental health.



Alberico Collina

When Money Is The Protagonist


This is a story that revolves around a crime that will shape the destiny of a diverse group of individuals. A crime that will change their relationships and their life. Forever.

This is The Human Capital - Il capitale umano (2014), a film directed by Paolo Virzi’, and written by him based on the novel by Stephen Amidon. Money is the protagonist of this film. But so are unfulfilled dreams and failure. An ex-sportsman, who didn’t make it as a tennis player, employs money he doesn't have to try to climb socially. An actress, who never became famous, uses her husband's money to try to gain a place in society. A teacher tries to get published and is seduced by a vision of what that woman could have been. A dope fiend, who looks after his wayward nephew for money plots further exploitation. And in the middle of all these disillusioned, broken adults, there are teenage sons and daughters who become collateral damage. Young men and women who grow up the best way they can; often straying, often suffering, but sometimes, just sometimes, living the life they deserve.

The Human Capital is a movie that asks more questions than it answers, but gains credibility from this shortcoming. It shows how we put a monetary value on everything, how we are taught to do this from an early age, and how we convince ourselves that money will solve more problems than it will create.

The Human Capital shows there is nothing natural about calculating the monetary value to a life, or betting against the future of a country. We like to think of these activities as objective and rational, but they are far from it. They are subjective interpretations that have consequences; sooner or later, they will hurt someone. Usually the weakest.


Alberico Collina