Nuova raccolta di racconti in inglese

The house of seven dead

by PierAngelo Piccolo

In a dark age, In the mists of time, there was an ancient house in a solitaire, fearful place in a Venice`s lagoon, off in the coast of a small town, called Clodia.

In this dwelling, a hunting lodge in straw built over some stilts, like all the buildings in Venice, a little child habited, a puppy of man, distant and abandoned from his cruel parents.

He was hungry and desperate; the only thing awaiting him was death.

In a obscure, horrible and icy night, during a terrible storm, when the Venice`s lagoon was spectral, the unlucky child listened to the noise of a boat bringing between the cold waves. In the vessel there were seven men, seven sailors vicious and strong, fishing in the night.

While working, they met a corpse of an old man, floating in the dirty water. His beard was white and his body was swollen, it was quickly determined that the man drowned in the lagoon for a couple days.

The seven men, so, decided to recover the horrible corpse and then headed towards the house on the stils, believing it was uninhabited.

But it wasn’t.

They entered and saw the child, hungry, terrorized and dirty. He asked for food with a hopefull glim in his eyes, thinking they could help him.

But the sailor cruelly ignored him.

They lighted a fire and cooked polenta and fish. Then ate and ate again seeming unaware of the little boy. The small whelp cried and begged again and again. The men laughing and joking the more the boy plead. Two hours later, while the child continued to requested food from them, a sailor said:

“Ok kid, if you go call our friend who is sleepin in the boat, we’ll give ya somethin to eat”.

He ran out and went to speak to the corpse:

“Please sir, head to the house, come eat with your fiends”.

But the dead can’t answer.

So, he then came back and said that the uncoherent friend wasn’t waking up.

All the sailors laughed once more. A man, sadistically, told him:

Try again, boy”.

But it was useless. The boy became really desperate and a sailor repeated laughing:

“Please, try again”.

The third time, the child returned smiling and satisfied:

“Hey guys, your friend, his awake!”.

What appeared to them was a nightmare.

The huge corpse with the white beard entered in the room, and the smiles of giggling faces of the fishers were transformed in faces of horror. The tall spirit looked at the sailors and spoke:

“Men, you shall not have the ability to trick children further more.”

He raised his hand and trasformed them into seven horrible stone statues.

Today, many, many centuries later, if you are able to visit Venice`s lagoon, off the coast of Clodia, in a ancient building you can witness seven man of stone, set down around the table, stone, like their hearts.

Now, in our era, journalist and people from different country can swear they have seen, in Syria, Iran, Kurdistan, Nigeria, Somalia and in other horrible war zone of our planet, many, many, many soldier shooting innocent children. Soldiers, which no longer saw themselves as humans, but dull stones.

Perhaps transformed by the same, frightening spirit.

But … who is really the spirit?

The man drowned was San Theodore, the patron saint of the Venetian people and of all the poor children of this cruel world.

To remind us all to respect and love the priviledge that is childhood.

PierAngelo Piccolo.