CHAPTER 1
His letter.
“Ciao!
Do you remember me? I’m that insistent Italian from the plane to Cuba ?
You were the nicest person in the whole plane and I didn’t even take a picture of us together… I was about to kill myself after.
Still not sure… Did we really talk? Or was it just a dream?
How are you? How was the vacation?
Luca”
Her letter.
“Ciao!
I wouldn’t forget you even if I wanted: you were the only person I’ve talked to during those two days of travelling.
The holidays were wonderful and a bit crazy! I parascended… rose too high cause of my small weight and were hovering above the Caribbean sea! I was close to soil myself! I could never imagine landscape is so scenic if looking from the sky…”
She stopped for a moment. The reminiscences were still fresh.
A thin man fastens the belts on her waist, she thrusts her legs through the straps and a small rivet clicks. Two hooks are being joined to the parachute. Two tiny pegs. “What the fuck is that? They are not even soldered!”: a panic thought passes through her head… few metal things which she entrusted her life with.
“Go!”: shouts a lively Afro-American to the other and the cutter starts with a jerk. The cloth gets smoothed dramatically and next second her feet come off the board. The boat rushes again, up to the heaven the parachute soared. Higher and higher! Now the sea is far underneath. The flimsy construction is dangling in the air. The strap she is sitting on starts to shift. There is mere beauty around, but the girl sees nothing, but the hooks. Each of them is the same size as her little finger. They are the only things that attach her to the cloth. If one of them has a flaw, the girl will fall down, tumble against the water.
The steersman yells grinning: “Three hundred feet!”. Horror chilled her fragile body to the bone. She will plop down dead against the waters of the Caribbean sea, which’s been dreaming to see… She has always thought that death can be not only tragic, but also inimitable. For instance, if you have given the Q-sign because of liver inflammation after an unforgettable week in the capital of love Paris… Having visited the most fashionable restaurants and tried the best food, the famous pumpkin soup or scallops, and got pie-eyed with the best French vintage wine in Lido while enjoying international dances performed by absolutely beautiful women with resilient bare breasts and buttocks. This would be a perfect death, wouldn’t it?
