Next to us

The suburbs are a pain to go through, it is a pain from which you cannot escape, it is even a pain to be enjoyed, says Giovanni after being abandoned by his lifelong partner.

It is the pain of the families who can no longer stand, it is the pain of Roberto's wife who went into crisis after losing her job, they turned to the psychiatric services of the neighborhood, but who, overwhelmed by the emergencies, postponed to a later date; so one evening Roberto looked out from the balcony and asked Chiara for a glass of water, stood on the railing, handed the glass back so it wouldn't break and flew down from the sixth floor. It is the third within 500 meters explains Isolina, an elderly woman from the nearby parish: the only one who manages to enter all the houses.

Luca and Emanuela loved each other, cheerful, jovial, company. Their pain came with the dismissal, Luca lost patience, cried, something between them broke and it is not known if it can be repaired. Paolo has trendy red hair, he left school after repeating two years, he considers himself a failure so he took the razor blade to cut his arms, his parents found him in the bathtub; he survived. Everything happens in silence, a deafening stillness, as if nothing were happening. On the first floor among the buildings there is a 25-year-old boy suffering from a tumor, down there, a little further on, a 20-year-old girl is waiting for a transplant for a serious illness, down there Vincenzo died suddenly, leaving the wife and two children. Everything continues to flow, the elderly at the bar since the morning, the arguments in the condominiums, the elderly at the bar since the morning to escape from loneliness, the arguments in the condominiums.

The periphery is this letting go, not fighting the current of life, of the events that happen around.
Then when sadness, loneliness, depression, illness, job loss line up in front of you, you don't know what or who to hold on to.
The wave drags you impetuously, you grab a few twigs, faint hope, the body slams, contracts, rolls on itself, until you lose consciousness, you no longer know anything, all cognition leaves you. If you observe the periphery it is this uninterrupted flow of pain: they are tears that flow inside and flood the soul. Too many thoughts prevent you from staying awake, from seeing that every now and then there is some flash of light. Even if you know that the pain certainly ends, but not when we think, not when "all is lost"

Fabrizio Floris
NP August / September 2023