Dusty Shelves, Amongst Other Shelving

Laid out before me: life, basking in glory, basking in the sun. I hopped on the train from Caldonazzo to Trento, and I'm now here in Trento, sitting in the patio of a café, drinking a water and eating a croissant, or whatever they call it here.

What a wonderful world, Trento. The university, in its beautiful place up on the hill which I passed on my walk down the mountain from the train station, has a very idyllic campus. The beautiful buildings, the grass, the wall which surrounds the campus, and its spectacular view which overlooks the citta di Trento, all combine to create a sense of serenity and intellectual bliss, if one can say such a thing. This croissant, or whatever they call it, is delicious. I’ve only taken the first few bites, and I haven’t even gotten to the creamy filling part of it yet, but I’m about to. Life saves little surprises for us like this, unsuspecting windfalls full of happiness and gustatory goodnesses. Yum yum. Life especially saves many surprises for those like I, who have living within more than one personality: a veritable friendship within, between a beautiful, well-expressive extrovert and a highly self-observational introvert. They get along great, most of the jolly time.

The streets here are more modern, but the city, being in a beautiful valley within the mountain range, holds a feeling all its own. The valley here is of biblical standards, vast mountainscapes surround the velvety green flat of land. Full of old apartment buildings, new apartment buildings, new buildings (many cranes abound in the city and one notices passing construction sites that the helmet regulation which is flagrant in the United States is not as generally upheld here, most of the workers are shirtless, well-tanned, and helmetless), and shopfronts.

I finish my croissant, or whatever they call it here, and write the following autobiographical short, my usual easy switch to a third person repertoire, which I’ve entitled, quite fortuitously, in an odd way, to be sure, Dusty Shelves….

Dusty Shelves

The street corner housed a small tobacco shop. In that small tobacco shop, there among the somewhat dusty miscellanea which filled the messy, somewhat dusty shelves, was a paperback copy of “Il grande Gatsby.”

Let us say, for the sake of setting the scene, that when the American’s eyes fell upon that copy of Fitzgerald’s novel on the shelf in the small tobacco shop in the small Italian village among the Italian magazines and birthday cards, he saw it as a sign from the gods. Or, shall we say, to continue in the vein of setting the scene, he saw it as a gift. For, he did not take it as a portent of any kind, but merely as a kindly gift, a windfall, though yes, to be sure, he did have to purchase it. He had walked into the shop without knowing why, after a style of wandering called, “following one’s gut instinct.” No, he’s not a committed smoker, though he liked to enjoy a fresh roll every now and again.

The copy had on the cover a simple drawing of a man leaning back upon a car from the Golden Age, the 1920’s, maybe a Ford, or what’s supposed to look like a Ford, from the Golden Age, the Jazz Age, an epoch which once flourished one hundred years before the stage of this story we are here setting with the paperback Fitzgerald, the tobacco shop, and the unsuspecting American in Italy as its main characters and props. The drawing on the cover displayed a man with a lit cigarette in his hand, leaning back on the Ford, if we can call it a Ford, smoking, with the other hand dangling out of his pocket. The smoke from his cigarette waves about above him and the old Ford in drawn whisps, to eventually form itself into the shape of a drawn heart hovering over his drawn and slightly tilted head.

This particular American, who found a copy of Fitzgerald among the dusty shelves of the tobacco shop, had been, at the time of his finding and purchasing “Il grande Gatsby,” in Italy for about one month. One miraculous month. One wonderous month. One golden month. He had been listlessly passing his time reading in cafes and bars, sustaining himself on espressos and beer, with the occasional glass of fresh-squeezed juice in between espressos and beer and maybe some cheese and bread to keep the vitals vital, for the further use of furthering his literary philosophizing, of course. He really had no idea what he was doing. The only thing he was sure about at the time of this small word-photograph's being taken was the fact that he would not be returning to his homeland for a long, long time to come. Above his head was always sustained a smokey, vaguely luminescent luminescence, which, every now and then, seemed to take on the light-bulbish shape of an obscure and as-yet to-be-written novel. His self-drawn heart. Off the dusty shelves of languishing artistic humor with it, to the full expression of a manifested artistic clarity of ideas and shapes. 

O, to create his self-drawn heart! O, and from his self-drawn heart!

So much for calling croissants croissants.

A cornetto's a cornetto by any other name.

And so much for those dusty shelves. I used the word fortuitously while introducing the above short because of the following happenstance: upon returning from Trento to our campsite here by Lake Caldonazzo, I logged onto Facebook to find out that Dusty Hill, the member of the famous ZZ-Top, had passed away. Such a strange world. In breathes a new life, out goes an old life. I noticed, too, that a good friend of mine and his wife just today had a new child. And the world goes round.

What stories are dying? What stories must die? What stories are living? What stories must we give birth to, keeping in mind all the pain that birth involves?

There is a flash fiction contest, of which the deadline is coming up this September, and I’ve got my eyes on it. First prize is $3,000. Prima Prize. To get my feet wet, I read up on the last few winners, always a good idea, to be sure. The story that won the last contest was about birthing techniques, and the way in which children playfully come to understand them. Such a sweet and complex little story, to be sure. Full of jangled and juxtaposed film-like sentences and wonderful verbal interchanges and complex imagery. It left me staring at my MacBook screen with a cocked head, like the fellow drawn in the cover art of the paperback “Il grande Gatsby.” Above his head was always sustained a smokey, vaguely luminescent luminescence, which, every now and then, seemed to take on the light-bulbish shape of an obscure and as-yet to-be-written novel. His self-drawn heart. Off the dusty shelves of languishing artistic humor with it, to the full expression of a manifested artistic clarity of ideas and shapes. O, to create his self-drawn heart! O, and from his self-drawn heart!

A cornetto's a cornetto by any other name.

I sigh, close the page, and wonder about tomorrow. God, I must stop wondering about tomorrow. Anyway, what stories must be birthed? Anything new out there? Anything worth reading?

O, to create his self-drawn heart! O, and from his self-drawn heart! O, flash fiction, true to life’s magnificent and passing plays!