LIKE THIS MUSIC/ THE GREEN FACE

LIKE THIS MUSIC / THE GREEN FACE/

TIME, what does not erases time, what does not end up in oblivion as time going by , it often happened to Alma to think so. She , who was already forty, could not help but feel a shiver through her back , when she thought how quickly the forty years of her life had passed. In a breath, in a flash they were gone.  And she could not help but think, with tremor and dismay, that also the time she had left to live would go by just as quickly. She would  be gone one day. Certainly she with her body, her feelings , her thoughts, she with her daily actions would not have lasted over time. It would have wanted (it would want) something like this music that, while it sounded, very thin, fragrant , crystalline  , it seemed not only to mix with the air, indeed intersect in the air, subtly intertwine, grain by grain to the smallest particles of air__ the air you breathed, that you felt on your face, on your skin___ but also it seemed to mix,  intertwine with  time, that continued to flow unstoppable, relentless. There would have wanted ( there would want).  a music that when you heard it resounding the space of a small room began to widen and the ceiling to rise up, to disappear, to dissolve in the music, that is in the very thin time of music.  Even the walls of the room, its space becoming more and more wide, ended up to disappear, to dissolve, until the small space of the room became an immense space which continued to extend more and more, without end. One should be able to compose music like this to last over time, Alma  often thought. But she knew she was not capable of giving life to a music like the one that endures through time. And yet….about something that would last over time she kept on thinking . Alma had a good knowledge of plants and vegetables. She had created new vegetables, by doing experiments, above all doing crosses  between one vegetable and another, such as that between cauliflower and mint, or that between nettle and lettuce . She had gotten ( obtained) vegetables with an almost weird aspect____someone had even said that those of her….green creatures were indeed monstrous_____Yet the new vegetables created by Alma, they were very tasty, everyone agreed on that. But it was still only vegetables , and then it was true that they were not at all pleasant in appearance. Here, Alma would have liked ( wanted) to create a new plant that, in addition  to being an absolute novelty, as well as giving fruits that had never been seen or tasted, it also had an aspect that captured and delighted the eye. In short she was thinking about a fruit plant which would be also ornamental. Alma decided to try to combine two plants she liked very much, which she was enthusiastic about. For her the vine had always been a mythical and also mysterious plant. Not only the bunches of the grapes enchanted, exalted her, the grapes that in the sunlight shone like bright jewels, peeping out among the leaves, but the vine leaves too were a  truly masterpieces of nature for her, with their wide and yet frosted figure ( shape). Then in autumn, after the time of the harvest, when, starting to dry out, they changed color, they became a mix of colors, they were a truly marvel. With their burnt red, with their  deep, full yellow, with their mellow brown, when of the ripe grapes on the vines, among the multicolored drying leaves, only the scent remained_____even if it was such an intense scent, so persistent, so all pervading as to get drunk____they , the leaves which are drying ,which are going to die , they took on a truly precious jewels appearance. Indeed several times, when she had happened to see vine leaves made of silver or gold, even red gold, she could not help but think , even if she liked those jewels, that yet the vine leaves, which were deciduous, perishable, yet  they had ( have) something more____more special, more enchanting, and even tastier__ an inexpressible quid, that those jewel leaves, those vines leaves made of gold could not have.

Oak was tree which Alma loved the most.  She liked it for its magnificence ,for its grandeur, for its robustness. To not mention that oak , which lives long, seemed to stand by time, soar over time.  Alma also liked its large foliage, that made one think of a roof  of an outdoor shelter. She liked also  its  scalloped  leaves  But above all she was enchanted by the acorns of the oak, with their shiny surface, brown with just a hint of red, by their consistence, that to touch them they seemed to be made of wood. Alma tried and tried again, tirelessly, crossing the oak with the vine.  She only had self-taught knowledge on plants and cross breeding. She had an artisan laboratory not in step with the times of  genetic engineering , about which however she was informed. It certainly seemed easier to her too to intervene directly on the DNA of the plant than to stay on tinkering ,

with grafts, trying and trying again. Alma tried to get the plant she had in her mind for years, without discouraging when she obtained ( got) something very different from what she was looking for.  She finally managed to create a plant, a kind of tree, which was certainly a little shocking , but decidedly attractive too. It was a fruit plant, whose fruits had an unusual shape and also an unusual but very tasty flavor.  This very new tree was also beautiful, even if of an unusual beauty. The new plant created by Alma had the trunk and the branches of the oak, the leaves of the vine.  Its fruits were clusters of acorns , which tasted like grapes, a taste that was sweet and a little bitter. Shoots with grape leaves and bunches of this grape, whose grains were in the shape of acorns , protruded even from the trunk of the plant.  The new plant was very successful. Photos of the plant were published in newspapers and shown on television.  There were those who said and wrote that on the trunk of the plant, among the vine leaves, you could see eyes, indeed even a human face.  So the plant was called The green face and soon it found place in public gardens, but also in  gardens of houses.            Then it happened that Alma, following an accident, remained unconscious, or in deep coma, for long time. As if she too had become a vegetable. When she woke up from deep coma a lot of time had passed, a new century had begun. Alma found it hard to find herself alive after so long time, during which  she had not been aware of anything, during which it had been as if she were no longer there. One of the first news she learned after her return to conscious life concerned her creature, The Green Face, which was still very successful, it kept on being very diffused. Alma also knew that since some time in her city, but also in other cities of the country horrible crimes were committed at the foot of her creature. The bodies of the victims, mangled, bricked up, made in pieces, had been found at the feet of the tree she had created. Like a sacrifice to be offered to the Green Face, someone had said.