The Loneliness of the Spider

Chapter 6

I look outside, through the window. The forecast says it will rain. I lie down on the couch. I follow the trajectories of a fly as it flies close to the ceiling. There is a spider web up in the corner. It looks solid and well made. The insect might end up in it.

Giulia seems lost in thought. She is sitting in an armchair, with her legs crossed, and is stroking her hair with a mechanical gesture.

"Are you pensive?" I ask her.

"Hmm."

"What"s the matter?"

"I would like to go to the beach."

"To the beach? But if it"s going to rain."

"If I were a poet..."

"A poetess?"

"Yes, why?"

"Nothing."

She shrugs.

"So? What would you do if you were a poetess?"

"Let"s say a painter. Better? I’m convinced that I would go looking for my muse at the seaside. On a day like this."

"The last time I was there it was freezing cold and the beach was full of smelly dead fish. I don"t know why. Something must have happened. Pollution, I guess, or something like that."

"And so? There is something magnificent and grandiose about death. Think of the casts of Pompeii."

"What happened to the fishing boats that slide over the surface of the water in the silence of twilight?"