Mara Masolini

“THE BLACK FIGURE COMING OUT OF THE SEWER” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #127

THE BLACK FIGURE COMING OUT OF THE SEWER The villa had been built about ten years earlier. So it was in a modern, if not postmodern style,  although perhaps someone might prefer to speak of the eclectic style of the early 2000s . So it was all corners and edges….oh, but the great villa had also chimneys in a shape of a three sided prism. To access the  large entrance door, of stained glass  and enameled metal, you had to go up a  long and very steep staircase of white marble.  The villa did not have a harmo...

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“THE EVE WAITING, WHEN TIME SEEMS TO BE RUNNING OUT” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #126

THE EVE WAITING , WHEN TIME SEEMS TO BE RUNNING OUT Alina sighed, closing the suitcase she had just finished preparing. She was about to leave for Cortina, the mountain location where she had decided to celebrate the end of the year and the arrival of the New Year. It wouldn’t take more than two hours to get to Cortina.  This year she didn’t feel like taking a long trip to celebrate, but indeed to live THAT PASSAGE OF TIME, from December31st to January 1st,  that she had always felt like a di...

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“HE WAS LATE FOR THAT APPONTMENT TOO” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #125

HE WAS LATE FOR THAT APPOINTMENT TOO Terrence had always been a latecomer. His schoolmates, from elementary school, remembered that there had been no a day that he didn’t arrive in class, out of breath, all in a hurry, always after the lessons had already begun. Even when he was no longer a child, Terrence continued to be regularly late. He arrived late not only to appointments with doctor, with dentist, but even with girls   to whom he cared a lot,  with whom he had to insist&...

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“WHERE IS IT HIDDEN?” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #124

WHERE IS IT HIDDEN?  The first thing she remembered was a long corridor, which seemed to have not end, that she found herself in front of. But she didn’t know how she got there , whether through a door, going down or up the stairs. Or whether she had been dropped into it. As time went by____and it had to have passed a long time since she was in there, even though she couldn’t say  how much time had passed_____as she kept wandering through passages and underpasses, through tunnels and very strange looking doors, through ro...

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“THERE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE AUDIENCE” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #123

THERE   AT THE BOTTOM OF THE AUDIENCE It was a bit of struggle to clean the stage after that show which, they said, had really enjoyed , and excited  the spectators. They had talked about it in television…..They said, since she hadn’t seen it. No, she had not been part of the large audience who, sitting in the red armchairs of the stalls had enjoyed ( tasted) that tragicomic comedy in which hens, ducks and turkeys had also gone up on the stage. She seemed to remember that even a little pig had go...

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“THE GIFT IS INSIDE THE PACKAGE” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #121

THE GIFT IS INSIDE THE PACKAGE It was December 30th, a Friday. The next day would be the last day of the year. And it would also have been his birthday. Alex was born on December 31th , fifty years earlier. He would have celebrated his 50th birthday during the New year’s Eve dinner, in the company of his friends, his sons and his daughter, and his two ex wives too. He ( Alex) would never had expected that visit. Greta  had been one of the many women with whom he had had a brief affair , as a young man. &nb...

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“THE LITTLE RED HEART” by Mara Masolini

THE LITTLE RED HEART It was  nothing more than a trinket, ( it was ) really a trifle.  She had found it not even in the Easter egg, but , as a gift, into a bag of biscuits. It was a small red heart, attached with a short chain to a safety pin. The little red heart wasn’t at all made of precious material, it wasn’t even made of coral.  It looked to be made rather of plastic, of hard plastic. It had a  very  smooth very shiny surface m which  enhanced its red, which was rather a ...

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“THREE CHIMNEYS ON THE BEACH” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #119

.THREE CHIMNEYS ON THE BEACH From the glass facade the sea seemed to enter the house, which, despite its transparent façade, had almost the appearance of a beach cottage, a red brick cottage with a sloping red roof, on which three chimneys stood ( out), and on each chimney, a cockerel windbreaker ( a cockerel wind vane). On the ground floor of the beach cottage ( house), which would be more appropriate to call…sand floor, there was a wide room, perhaps a study, perhaps a kind of living room, furnished exclusively with all...

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“THE NIGHT THAT” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #119

 THE NIGHT THAT She was going up and down the track, waiting for the train, when she heard what  more than a sound sounded rather  as  a cannon shot . A cannon shot being fired in a very high place, which was ( seemed to be) very above….of her head, aven far above the tracks, the trains, the station.  As soon as she heard that rumble, loud but dull ( deaf), it was instinctive for Angie  to look up, to look at the sky. Since that  very powerful , and yet even dull...

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“PAPER WINGS” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #118

 PAPER WINGS Tommy  stood softly, comfortably curled up on the high red armchair, where he had taken an afternoon nap…And as if he was enjoying it, sunk in that delicious softness, something that made his moustache tremble for emotion and contentment. There was no one at home, neither the dark faced woman nor her terrible little girl, nor that very big man , who came every now and then to visit them. Ah, that there, that very big one, with his big belly and his big ass ( butt), he always chased Tommy from the ar...

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“THE TINY SILVER BELL” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #118

THE TINY SILVER BELL The leaf was settled, stretched out, with the tips of its lobes upright, on the bench , right next to her, who only noticed it when she get up. It was a five lobed maple leaf , whose predominant color was reddish, which had almost completely eliminated the green. It was autumn and under the trees, in the meadows, in the gardens, but also on the roads and the city streets there were many leaves , there were carpets of fallen leaves. That one, perhaps carried by the wind, lay on the bench as if it...

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“DANCING WITH THE KILLER” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #117

 DANCING WITH THE KILLER   She had been undecided until the last moment, we can say. Only on the last day that the great event would take place in the night, she had made up her mind to go to the great party in the wonderful, magnificent Renaissance villa to which she had been invited by Judith, who was a friend of the hosts who gave the great party. Judith had told her that all the guests participating  in the party  had to wear a costume from past centuries, preferably a Renaissance co...

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“GOING DOWN THE BLACK STEPS” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #117

GOING  DOWN THE  BLACK STEPS It was midnight . The last toll of the high bell tower arrived , even if as clouded by the fog(drowned in the fog) when Thaddeus announced to his guests that everything had been set up perfectly for the ritual to which all of them, as his precious friends,  would have the very special honor of participating. Thaddeus wore a wide black cloak, long up to his feet, under which the red of his tunic and the yellow of his trousers stood out, when he, standing...

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“BEYOND THE CLOSED DOOR” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #116

BEYOND THE CLOSED DOOR “  Oh, what a small door! What’s in there? The dollhouse, perhaps? Oh, but you’re a boy, sorry, excuse me!” Lucy had run ahead of him down the stairs and now she was standing in front of the narrow door, no more high than three feet, which was next to the cellar door. Her hand on the handle, Lucy was trying to open the little door. “ But it’s closed! It takes the key ( to open it)! Don’t you have the key?” Lucy asked him, impatiently . “ I don’t have the key” Stephan answered. “ Oh, but what is in a room wit...

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“THE MASS GRAVE IN CHINATOWN” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #115

 THE MASS GRAVE IN CHINA TOWN It was when in the evening they turned on the lights of their houses that the inhabitants of Candia realized that there had to be something wrong. In fact the lights did not turn on, they were completely in the dark. Indeed they could have noticed it even when, almost before the lights in the houses,  the streets lamps , which were supposed to light up, had not lit up. Oh, but the people who ( had) passed through those streets, did so  in cars or o...

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