#you know the one. with davy jones and the telescope. Imagine it like that. that-ish

[breitzbachbea]

La Sicilia dell'eterna notte

Inspired by me getting really into ghosts lately and enjoying "Creature Fantastiche di Sicilia" by Rosario Battiato & Chiara Nott mightily. All Italian quotes are taking directly from the book's entry on Divoti, spirits that carry out a ghastly funerary procession for any Sicilian unlucky enough to cross their path at night. Plus talking briefly with @kitaychan, who planted the idea of a ghost lovestory in my head.

Come one, come all who seek a very short, very fucked up ghost story, feat the trope of a deathbed being a weddingbed.

"You have a death wish," Nina told the guest who sat on her stoop, staring out into the Palermitian hinterland.

"What, now going out at night is a death wish for me?" Harry asked with a grin, looking at her from the corners of his eyes, head cocked while he adjusted his coppola.

Nina only shook her head and disappeared inside.

Tra le esperienze più orrorifiche per le vie della Sicilia notturna, c'é indubbiamente la processione delle anime.

The procession seemed away, far away, somewhere between the countless hills and slopes that encased Palermo. It was opposite of Monte Pellegrino. He could barely make out any shades.

Nothing changed when he suddenly found himself much closer to it. He was standing amidst bushes inbetween a field.

È sufficiente intravedere anche uno dei processionanti - non conta la distanza di osservazione, ma la percezione dell'evento - per finire nel gorgo della processione.

A shadow of their former selves, all of them, unable to be perceived by the mortal eye. Perhaps by anyone's eye. A grin spread on his face as he adressed him. "Must have been quite the looker when you still were yourself."

The procession had yet drawn him closer and he got to see the shade smile.

Assiepati quasi gli uni sugli altri, queste figure bizarre, che soltanto vagamente hanno le sembianze degli uomini che furono, si aggirano issando un cataletto senza bara.

Harry barely felt any of the ghostly hands on him, too many to feel out his touch. He listened intently to the shushed voices, if any of the whispers could be his voice. Barely on the barge, he turned on his stomach and leant down. "You look quite a lot like the one bloke from the catacombs. You know him?"

The shade turned its head and looked at him. He blinked. He didn't blink. Spirits didn't blink. Harry bled from where the thorns of the barge had stung him. The bleeding ran dry.

Mani lievi e voci sussurrate accompagnerebbero sul cataletto e così si ritroverebbe alla sua ceremonia funebre, divenendo egli stesso il cadavere da commemorare.

"Never seen such a beautiful corpse," said Harry who barely noticed his own decay. The night was eternal around him and his own eyes long dried up, fixed on the unfixable object of desire. "Like, what corpse still looks at you? I saw you then, and you looked at me, didn't you? You caught me back then." His hand reached out, nothing more than skeletal remains grasping at the night itself, at the spectre that was in all ways utterly ungraspable. "Life begins in a bed and it ends in a bed," said vocal chords which had long been turned into dust. "Do you not want to join me in mine?"

The spectre turned around and stared at a shadow of a man, at itself. At nothing but a look filled with mania. A stare that entrapped.

Si muovono con lentezza studiata, tessendo una ragnatela di sguardi per intrappolare gli esseri umani lungo il loro cammino.

"Didn't came back?" Luca asked Nina, who shook her head.

"It's a shame for the money he owed me. Didn't even bring anything with him here I can seize."

Pare, infatti, il cataletto contenga una specie di letto di spine con la puntuta qualità di trasformare gli uomini in morti, o di condurli nel migliore dei casi al delirio.