STARS (a 55-word story)


Our desert guide was binding a camel’s legs together.

“Why?” I asked.

“Too much walking. If I don’t tie its legs, it will walk till death.” Said the guide.

“I wish I could tie my thoughts together; maybe I could sleep then.” I said.

“Watching stars ties thoughts together.” Said the guide.

And it did.



Alberico Collina

Trial by Dinner


One of the most imaginative stories I have ever read is entitled Traps – A Still Possible Story by Friedrich Dürenmatt.

The car of a travelling salesman breaks down, and he ends up having to spend the night in a small rural town, where all hotels are booked because of an agricultural fair.

Someone directs him to the house of a retired judge, who sometimes, if he likes them, lets strangers sleep at his house.

The pensioner takes a look at the salesman and invites him to stay at his house, on condition that he remain for dinner, and that he take part in a role playing game.

That night, a mock trial takes place over a cordon bleu dinner.

The salesman is tricked into revealing an episode in his past, in which he did not behave ethically.

And which may have contributed to the death of his employer.

The prosecution, a retired lawyer, colleague of the host, seizes on this and pins the crime on the salesman, who becomes the unwitting defendant of a hypothetical murder charge.

But the evening takes an ominous turn and what was supposed to be just a game becomes a tragedy.

Dürrenmatt’s skill lies in telling a tale, where, although we are seduced by the logic of the prosecution and the elegance of their case, ultimately, we empathise with the defendant.

We realize, like many of us, he's a victim of his own superficiality.

His only ‘crime’ is to have sought pleasure without thinking about the consequences.

But at this dinner he is made to stand trial for it.

And this throws a completely different perspective on the whole affair, blowing it up out of all proportions, forcing him to reevaluate his entire life and its worth.

And this will prove deadly.


Alberico Collina

MOTHER JUSTICE (a 55-word story)


Nelido Serpico roamed the streets of Buenos Aires.

With a picture of Octavio, her son, who was shot dead at sixteen, and his killer’s name.

Written on her hands were two numbers: the police case file number and the police’s phone number.

After seven years, she found her son’s killer.

And put him behind bars.




Alberico Collina

THE FIRST SEASON


I hear her lock the shop from inside.

I’m standing in the display window, and with the corner of my eye, I see her hang a “CLOSED” sign on the door.

She ties her hair back with an elastic band she was keeping between her lips.

She walks towards me, wiping her hands on her blue jeans, and whispers, “It’s your turn, Mister.”.

Her slender fingers begin to unbutton my shirt. She has warm hands.

When she pulls off my sleeves, she’s so close I can smell her hair.

One by one, she takes all my clothes off, and puts a “SALE” tag on each.

Tilting her head to one side, she purses her lips while her eyes scan me up and down.

And they linger on my crotch.

She goes to the back of the shop and comes back with a large roll of brown paper.

After measuring a length of it around my waist, she cuts it to size.

She tapes the paper to my midriff like a mini skirt, steps back to look at me, and smiles.

I’ve seen her do it to the others. In a few days, she’ll take the paper off me, and she’ll dress me for the new season.

A mannequin’s life is measured in seasons.

And this was my first.



Alberico Collina

The following are two brief stories both about Truth but very different in content and form.

The first is a 55-word story called The Search by Robert Tompkins included in World’s Shortest Stories Of Love And Death.

It describes the Pyrrhic victory of a man who searches for the truth...and finds it.

The second tale is a Jewish teaching story entitled The Naked Truth.

It is about our need to dress up Truth in story in order to accept it.

These stories are vivid and memorable metaphors of Truth that stay with us long after we've read them. 

They leave a sour aftertaste that gets sweeter until they make you smile.


Alberico Collina


THE SEARCH by Robert Tompkins


Finally, in this remote village, his quest ended.

There, by the fire, sat Truth.

Never had he seen an older, uglier woman.

“Are you Truth?”

The wizened, wrinkled hag nodded.

“What message can I take from you to the world?” he pleaded.

She replied, spitting into the fire. “Tell them I am young and beautiful.”




THE NAKED TRUTH (Old Jewish Teaching Story)

"Truth, naked and cold, had been turned away from every door in the village. Her nakedness frightened the people. When Parable found her she was huddled in a corner, shivering and hungry. Taking pity on her, Parable gathered her up and took her home. There, she dressed Truth in story, warmed her and sent her out again. Clothed in story, Truth knocked again at the doors and was readily welcomed into the villagers’ houses. They invited her to eat at their tables and warm herself by their fires."

God Is Not Home


One scorching morning in August, several years ago, I visited a church with my young nephew. When we stepped inside, because of the drop in temperature, I felt as if we'd plunged into an underground cave. The smell of burnt incense still hung in the air, and a few people who were still kneeling were getting up to leave.
My nephew looked around smiling as if he were inside a candy shop.
"Uncle, close your eyes and count to one hundred." Said my nephew pulling my hand to get my attention.
"We can't play 'Hide and Seek' here." I said.
"Why not?" he asked.
"There are not enough places in which to hide." I lied.
"Why is everybody whispering?" asked my nephew not entirely convinced by my answer.
"We are inside the house of God, and we need to be quiet."  I said almost automatically.
After a few seconds, he escaped my grip and ran off. He cupped his hands around his mouth and began shouting, "God? God? Where are you? Come out!", while checking inside the confessional, behind the altar, and beyond the choir stalls.
People looked on in horror. Their mouths and nose contorted in disgust and disapproval. The priest's eyes murdered me on the spot, while he gestured for me to take my nephew out of the church. Immediately.
I caught up with my nephew, grabbed him by the hand, and stepped out into the midday sun. As the heat hit us again, he looked up at me, and asked "Uncle, if it's God's home, why didn't he come out? Was he hiding?"
"No, he wasn't hiding. God doesn't hide. Sometimes, God is not home, that's all." I answered.
This seemed to satisfy him but, for the rest of the day, I couldn't get that phrase out of my mind. And I hated myself for having said it.

Alberico Collina

YOU WOULDN'T WANT ME


You wouldn’t want me

I’d say Yes too often.

You wouldn’t want me

I’d let you drive.

You wouldn’t want me

I’d treat you well.

You wouldn’t want me

I’d listen to you.

You wouldn’t want me

You only want who you can’t have

And soon that could be me.



Alberico Collina

Looking Back


This passage from The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati shows why he's a master at using space metaphorically.
Buzzati could have conveyed the emotional turmoil of leaving home and the unnerving onset of adulthood in a thousand different ways.

The one he chooses is both vivid and memorable.

The protagonist, Giovanni Drogo, is accompanied by a friend for part of the way to his military posting.

On horseback, they reach a hilltop, and, turning round, they take in a view of the town they have left behind.

The town in which they both grew up.

And their town becomes their Past.

From this vantage point, Drogo picks out his bedroom window.

And his bedroom becomes his childhood.

We see the "patient dust" he imagines settling on it.

We squint at the "thin streak of lights" he pictures cutting through the shutters.

And we share the regret and nostalgia that sting his heart and his eyes.


Alberico Collina


"They had reached the brow of a hill. Drogo turned to see the city against the light: morning smoke rose from the roofs. He picked out the window of his room. Probably it was open. The women were tidying up. They would unmake the bed, shut everything up in a cupboard and then bar the shutters. For months and months no one would enter except the patient dust and, on sunny days, thin streaks of light. There it was, shut up in the dark, the little world of his childhood. His mother would keep it like that so that on his return he could find himself again there, still be a boy within its walls even after his long absence – but of course she was wrong in thinking that she could keep intact a state of happiness which was gone forever or hold back the flight of time, wrong in imagining that when her son came back and the doors and windows were reopened everything would be as before."
from The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati

The Fishwife


The fishwife came to the village every Friday morning, during the summer. She brought the day’s catch. A scent of fish, onions, and damp earth followed her. It pushed aside the home cooking aromas, pouring out of open kitchen windows.

The fishwife wore light, wooden clogs, as if on a beach. She dragged them noisily along a carpet of sunlight, separating the thin shadows of the tall houses, on either side of the street. A procession of stray cats and a few curious children tailed her. The sun was so high they had no shadows; it made them look like ghosts.

The villagers knew when the fishwife was coming because her drawn-out lament preceded her: “Ëeeelaghaiiipeeeesciiia!” which, in the local dialect, means "Heeeeere´s Fiiiish!¨. She carried a wide basket full of fish on her head. It was a surreal sombrero, which kept her head and shoulders in the shade. Despite this, her face, neck, and forearms were deeply tanned, as if she spent her life in the sun. One hand supported the heavy wicker, while the other rested on her hip. She swayed when she walked.

The old men of the village looked forward to her swaying. They waited for her, sitting on either side of the streets, on cool, Carrara marble benches. They were mostly old mariners, and they dressed in black, white, and grey. Their clothes were heavy, and some smelled of mothballs, others of musty wine cellars. Most men had craggy, tanned faces from a lifetime at sea. They wore basques or straw hats. They laid their hands, and sometimes also their head, on their cane, which they held upright before them, when sitting down. They spent the mornings cracking jokes and teasing each other. Sometimes one of them brought a pink newspaper with him. This earned him the right to read aloud the Sports’ news to the others. When the fishwife walked past, he would stop, and they would all sit up and exchange knowing looks.

No one knew how old the fishwife was, and no one dared to ask her. Thinking about it now, she must have been middle-aged. There was something timeless about her; as if she came from the Past and was only visiting. She always wore a white headscarf, tied at the back like a pirate, and a light blue and grey, short-sleeved dress, buttoned up at the front. Its bright colours had washed out years before. I had seen similar dresses in an Italian black and white film I’d watched on TV. They were worn by peasant women, who were singing while working shin-deep in paddy fields.

Tied around her waist, she wore a stained, once-white apron, as if she had just come from the kitchen. She would wipe her hands on it, after serving customers; after wrapping the fish inside brown paper, and placing it in white plastic bags. She had large hands and thick fingers. Her fingernails were dirty with dark soil, as if she had just been planting something. Her hands were enormous. They were the hands of a man; the hands of a large peasant.

She rarely spoke, and then, only to make a sale. Her voice was low and steady; it came from her gut, not her head. She sounded like someone who had seen it all and heard it all. Nothing seemed to surprise her. She had the eyes and the expressions of a much older woman, but she had a child’s smile. When she smiled, one could not help but to smile back. The fishwife never smiled at men, but she smiled at a few women and all children.

Hers must have been a hard life, but one could see she was proud of it; all of it. When she sat down, she sat like a man, with her legs wide open, putting the basket on her lap. When she moved, she did so as if half-asleep, like someone used to pacing herself under the sun.

When customers approached her, the fisherwoman would take down the basket, and a dozen cats would lower their noses in wide-eyed silence, as if witnessing a Martian landing. The cats seemed to be attached to the fish by an invisible string, tied to an imaginary nose ring. Some of them tried to get closer. In these instances, the fishwife would turn and glare at them, and her pupils became tiny dots. Her Medusa stare would petrify them on the spot, sometimes with a paw in mid-air, as if they were playing Statues, the children’s game. No cat ever beat the fishwife at Statues.

It has been years since the fishwife has come to the village. A dark, serious, Sicilian has taken her place. He drives a refrigerated white Fiorino van and never smiles. Villagers know when the fishmonger has arrived because he shouts ¨Pesce! Pesce!¨ Fish! Fish! in the megaphone mounted on his van. He does not enter the village but opens the back of his vehicle in the parking lot, and waits impatiently for the elderly villagers to show up. They come out of nowhere and approach erratically like zombies. While he is selling them the day’s catch, a young, leggy, blonde in jeans sits in the passenger seat of the van. She looks East European and chews gum while playing games on her mobile phone. She listens to an ipod looking bored. Every now and again, she takes a nervous drag on a cigarette or blows chewing gum bubbles. There are no cats about; someone must be feeding them now.


Alberico Collina