The House of the Seven Dead

by Pier-Angelo (Piero) Piccolo 

      In a dark age clouded by the mists of time, there was an ancient house in a solitary, frightening place in one of Venice's lagoons, off the coast  of a small town called Clodia.

     In this dwelling, a straw hunting lodge built on stilts, like all the buildings in Venice, lived a small child, a human puppy, alone and abandoned by his cruel parents.

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

    During a terrible storm in a dark icy-cold night, when Venice's lagoon was spectral, the unfortunate child listened to the noise of a boat rocking on the cold waves. In the vessel, there were seven men—seven sailors, strong and vicious, fishing in the night. 

    While fishing, they saw a corpse of an old man floating in the dirty water. His beard was white and his body was swollen; they quickly understood that the man had drowned in the lagoon some days ago. 

     So the seven men decided to recover the horrible corpse and then headed towards the old house on stilts, believing it was uninhabited.

     But it wasn’t.

     They entered the house and saw the child, who was hungry, dirty and filled with terror. He asked for food with a hopeful gleam in his eyes, thinking the men would help him. 

     But the sailors cruelly ignored him. 

     They lit a fire and cooked polenta and fish. Then they ate and ate again, seemingly unaware of the boy. The little whelp cried and begged for food again and again. The men laughed and joked the more the boy pleaded. Two hours later, while the child continued his request for food, a sailor said: 

    “Well, youngin, if you go out and call our friend who is sleepin' in the boat, we’ll give you somethin' to eat.” 

    The boy ran out and went to speak to the corpse: 

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

      But the corpse didn't answer. 

      So the boy then went back and told the sailors that their sleeping friend wasn’t waking up.

     All the sailors laughed once more.  One of them, sadistically, said: 

    “Try again, boy.”

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

    “Please, try again.”

    The third time, the child returned smiling and satisfied:

   “Hey, men, your friend, is awake!”

    What appeared before them was truly a nightmare.

    The huge corpse with the white beard entered the room, and the smiles on the giggling fishermen's faces were transformed into faces of horror. The tall spirit looked at the sailors and spoke: 

   “Men, you shall not have the power to trick children anymore.”

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

    Today,  many, many centuries later, if you ever visit Venice's lagoon off  the coast of Clodia, in a ancient building, you can see seven man of stone, sitting down around the table, stones, like their hearts. 

    Today, journalists and people from Syria, Iran, Kurdistan, Nigeria, Somalia and other horrible war zones of our planet can swear they have seen many, many, many soldiers shooting innocent children. Soldiers, who no longer saw themselves as human, but dull stones. 

    Perhaps transformed by the same, frightening spirit.

    But … who is really the spirit?

    The drowned man in the story 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 privilege that is childhood.

PierAngelo Piccolo.

Winner of Keltia Award 

Aosta Italy 

With a little help from  my friend Silvia Falsaperla