Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is a story about a significant arrival.
This week’s contribution comes from Chiara De Giorgi. Chiara is an Italian author and currently lives in Berlin, Germany. She writes fiction, with a focus on children’s literature and science fiction.
***
Of Storytellers and Christmas Night
by Chiara De Giorgi
“Gemma, what are you still doing there in front of the computer… Come to bed!”
“Just give me a moment, I’m re-reading this story, I’m almost done.”
“Again? You must have re-read it a hundred times, aren’t you fed up?”
Gemma got up from her chair and came face to face with Scott. She smiled at him and planted a kiss on his mouth. “I wrote it, so: no, I’m not fed up.”
Scott stretched and yawned noisily. “Well, I, on the other hand, am dead tired. I mean, I was happy to help your great-grandmother make tortellini for tomorrow, but we must have wrapped like, twenty kilos, I can’t feel my hands anymore!”
“Then go to bed, I’ll join you in a little while. It’s only ten minutes to midnight…”
Scott looked at her for a moment and then burst out laughing. “Are you waiting for midnight? Want to see if Santa comes?”
Gemma laughed and opened the window.
“What are you doing, are you out of your mind? It’s freezing outside!”
“Scott, what a beautiful sky! Look!” Gemma leaned out and turned her gaze upwards. “It’s like a dark blue blanket with a billion stars… And the crescent moon, this smell of snow… It’s really wonderful. If there’s one night that’s meant to be magical, it’s this one!”
Despite himself, Scott let out a half laugh and approached her. “As a matter of fact”, he said thoughtfully, “I can hear bells jingling…”
“Really? Where?”
He grabbed her head and shook it gently.
“Right in here! Listen! Oh, how they jingle!”
“Oh, you’re impossible!” Gemma laughed and pushed him away.
Scott left her alone. She let her eyes wander for a few more minutes across the sky. The dark night made her feel safe, but there was also a sense of anticipation in the air. This was probably always the case on Christmas night. She shivered, closed the window, and went back to sit in front of the computer to resume reading her story. She never wrote love stories, but this one had suddenly popped into her head, and she knew she had to put it down in writing.
It was about two storytellers who travelled the world, each on their own, carrying a thousand tales and a musical instrument: she a harp, he a guitar. On and off a plane, on a train, on a ship… They both travelled and travelled, never taking the time to stop and make a home for themselves. But neither of them really cared: they lived on dreams, music, and the love they felt existed somewhere.
So it happened that, when they bumped into each other in Stockholm, they recognised each other immediately. They spent an unforgettable weekend sailing up and down the Swedish beautiful fjords, then they had to part again: he would take his stories and music further north; she, further south. From then on, they always kept in touch, catching up with each other whenever they had a few days off. Their bizarre, intermittent romance went on for a long time, until they both felt they were too old to keep travelling so much.
The time had come to make a home for themselves! They retreated to a log cabin in the Swedish woods, not far from the sea. After all, that was where it all had started. They spent the last years of their lives together, loving each other, exchanging tales and songs, writing new stories and new music. And then, on a very cold winter night, the stove broke and the two storytellers froze to death. An acquaintance, who passed by every morning to visit the two old dreamers, found them. On the table was a stack of papers: it was their story, written half by her and half by him. Each chapter began and ended with a musical score: they had composed songs whenever they had been together. And on the last page, written in pencil by a trembling hand, were the words: And now we go on together.
Gemma sighed, saved the file, and turned off the computer. She looked at the clock: one minute to midnight. She got up and went back to the window, opened it again, and leaned out to look outside. At that moment the wind blew and pushed her hair in front of her eyes. She shook her head to straighten it and she thought she could actually hear bells jingling. She was overcome with curiosity and turned her head this way and that to scan every corner of the sky. There was nothing out of the ordinary and after a while she laughed to herself: what had she expected? To actually see Santa’s sleigh, pulled by a dozen reindeer, silhouetted against the moon like on Christmas cards?
Rather, she pondered, in the last few days there had been much talk of shooting stars: a meteor shower was expected, and anyone watching the sky might be rewarded by the sight of a bright trail. Ah, if only she could see one! She would wish… Gemma closed her eyes to think: what would she wish for? She thought back to the story she had just written: of a love so deep it existed even without knowing each other, of old age spent together with someone who was never tired of hearing or telling new stories… And she realised she knew what she would ask the shooting star. Scott was a great guy, but she felt - no: suddenly
she knew
there was a soul in the world she could share her deepest self with, and it was not him.
A warm feeling spread in the pit of her stomach: this always happened to her before some major event. Laughing softly to herself, she looked up at the sky again, and suddenly: there it was! Her shooting star! Quickly, instinctively Gemma reached out her hand, as if to grasp it. The star vanished. Puzzled, she stared up at the sky, blinking several times, disappointed: she had not had time to formulate her wish.
She lowered her arm and unclenched her fist: the star was there! Impossible! Yet there it was: a bright, white spark. Gemma laughed louder and louder, she could not stop: Christmas night was truly the most magical night ever, anything could happen, you just had to believe. She closed her eyes and focused on the twinkling star in the palm of her hand. And the star grew larger and larger, until it was as big as she was. It enveloped her completely. Gemma took a leap out of the window and soared upwards, flying and laughing, breathing in the air that was so unlike anything usual. And she dreamed new dreams, new stories, new songs, and a new love.
Note:
This Tale is included in ‘Life of Gemma & Antoine, Storytellers’. The manuscript was indeed found in a cabin in a Swedish forest and ended with the exact words: “And now we go on together”. Accounts from the time report that two Storytellers named Gemma and Antoine really existed, and that their relationship went through the stages described in the Tale. A brief investigation was carried out to establish whether the couple’s death was intentional: it was intended to prove that it was a staged exit, planned in advance. All clues, however, led to the conclusion that the death of the couple was accidental.
Of course, the power of Real Storytellers had not yet been discovered at the time.
*****
The Spot Writers—Our Members:
Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/
Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/
Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/
Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento