Camel Yellow

I observed me from afar, hidden among the shadows of the boardwalk. The time machine I had stolen – or perhaps invented, I could no longer recall – had brought me there, to that summer of 2000. I didn't know why I had chosen that particular day, but now that I saw him – saw myself – I understood. There was a sweetness in that memory, a whisper of something lost, that I needed to rediscover.

He – I – was thirteen years old and didn't yet know that carefree joy could evaporate like the morning mist. He sat in a corner of the skating rink, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his 501 jeans, bought with money earned from delivering flyers the previous summer, treasured like relics. He cast a gaze he imagined to be magnetic towards the laughing girls, illuminated by the neon lights.

Lire weighed heavy in his pockets, the summer evenings stretched into eternity, and that shiver – I recognized it well – wasn't just the cool evening air: it was the tremor of a heart discovering the intoxicating scent of anticipation. The RHCP's "Californication" crackled from a portable CD player, their music almost drowned out by boisterous, sincere laughter. Those were the years of gelled, spiky hair, of oversized t-shirts trying to make still-too-thin bodies appear larger. He – I – felt strong and invincible, but a single, wrong glance from a girl was enough to shatter that fragile armor.

Observing him, time seemed to hang suspended. The laughter of friends mingled with the clatter of skates on concrete, a steady rhythm that punctuated the evening like a looping soundtrack. I remembered every face, every laugh, every silly joke cracked just to gain a second of attention. There was Luca, with his blond tuft of hair and crooked teeth, always ready to challenge anyone to a race, and then Marco, who never spoke much but whose smile said everything. We were a pack, unconsciously searching for something none of us could define.

"Hey, do you have a cigarette?" she asked. I – he – didn't really smoke, couldn't quite inhale the smoke yet, but I carried a pack and a lighter in my pocket for just such an occasion. A yellow Camel changed hands: my cigarette offered to her, the girl with the biggest smile in the world.

It was an uncertain gesture, almost comical, to extend that tiny object as if it were a sacred offering. She took it with a naturalness that captivated me, and lit it with precise, confident movements. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail, and her laughter made everything seem less complicated. Not that anything was complicated back then. I found that ironic. I remembered her name well: Giulia. I had written it on my school desk, etched with the tip of a ballpoint pen.

I wondered what that young boy was thinking, if he was already aware that this evening would be forever etched in his memory. Perhaps not. Perhaps, in his head, there were only confused thoughts: "Do I like her? Does she like me? Why is my heart beating so fast?" Nostalgia seized my throat, sweet and bitter like an old song you haven't heard in years but can still remember word for word.

Time flew by, as it always does when you wish you could stop it. The sky darkened, the neon lights of the rink seemed more intense against the blackness of the night. The chatter faded, replaced by silences filled with complicity. Those were the moments when you didn't know what to say, but it didn't matter, because everything already seemed perfect. In his jeans pocket, he – I – found a small note. "Thanks for the cigarette," with a heart drawn next to it. I still remembered that note. I had kept it for years, hidden between the pages of a diary.

He – I – gathered his courage and circled the rink to reach the group of girls, who watched him arrive with wide eyes, giggling as they alerted Giulia, who had her back turned. She, in a green floral dress that framed her already womanly figure, and Zone platform shoes that made her seem much taller than she was. It was enough to make a thirteen-year-old boy weak in the knees. "We're going to the beach, are you coming?" he – I – asked. She nodded.

A friend pulled out an out-of-tune guitar, and the first chords of "Wonderwall" filled the air. He – I – sang the first verse, then watched her, sitting on the damp sand, gazing out at the sea. And he gave her his – my – first real kiss. In the distance, the waves crashed gently against the shore. I found myself smiling. I would never have imagined, at thirteen, that one day I would be there, observing myself, reliving every detail with an almost painful clarity. The salty smell of the sea mingled with the sweetness of a Bacardi Breezer warmed by hours in his - mine - backpack. Sharing it with her was nectar.

When the evening ended, everyone went their separate ways. They – we – exchanged an awkward kiss, half tongue, half peck, probably my – his (his) fault.

I – he – pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt and started walking home. The streets were deserted, illuminated only by a few flickering streetlights. I followed him to his front door, remaining in the shadows. He – I – paused for a moment before entering, raising his gaze to the starry sky. Who knows what he wished for at that moment. Perhaps a simple, happy life, full of those moments that seemed trivial then, but which I now know to be precious. Perhaps he wished to see Giulia again, or maybe simply to never grow up. He entered the house, closing the door behind him, and I remained there, motionless, my heart filled with nostalgia.

And in that moment, I understood something. It wasn't just nostalgia for what had been. It was gratitude. For those summer evenings, for the laughter, for the first crushes and the first mistakes. For that insecure boy who didn't yet know how much he would change, but who already had within him everything he would become.

A shrill sound distracted me: it was the time machine's alarm. The journey was about to end. The coordinates updated, and in an instant I found myself back in my room, in my present. I woke with a start, my heart still gripped by that nostalgia. Had it all been just a dream? Perhaps. But the scent of the sea and the echo of that laughter were still there, vivid, as if they had never left me.

I got out of bed, still dazed from the journey through time – or from the dream, I wasn't sure. The room was shrouded in darkness, broken only by the bluish light of the alarm clock display. 3:27 in the morning.

I opened the window, letting in the cool night air. The neighborhood slept, silent, but in the distance, I could still hear the sound of the sea. The same sea from twenty-five years ago. I wondered if Giulia was still in Rome, somewhere in the city, if she too remembered that night with the same intensity.

I picked up my phone, hesitating for a moment before opening social media. I searched for her, discovering that she still lived in the area. Her photos showed a smiling woman, with the same bright eyes I remembered. For a moment, I was tempted to write to her. What would I say? "Hey, remember me? We kissed twenty-five years ago."

I smiled, shaking my head. Some things were better left in the past, guarded like precious treasures in memory.

I went back to bed, but sleep was slow to come. I thought back to that thirteen-year-old boy, how different he was from the man I had become. Yet, somehow, we were still the same person. His dreams, his fears, his hopes… everything was still there, buried beneath layers of experiences and disappointments.

"Perhaps," I thought, "this is the true power of time travel. Not to change the past, but to remember who we were and rediscover that part of ourselves that we thought we had lost."

With this thought, I closed my eyes. And for a moment, before falling asleep, I seemed to hear again the distant echo of that summer laughter, the scent of the sea, and the taste of a first kiss.

The next morning, I woke up with a strange feeling of lightness. The memories of the previous night still floated in my mind, mingling with the sounds of the city awakening.

I decided to take a walk along the beach, the same stretch of coast I had walked countless times as a boy. The sun was just rising, painting the sky with shades of pink and orange.

As I walked, I noticed a solitary figure sitting on the sand, gazing at the horizon. My heart skipped a beat when I realized who it was.

"Giulia?" I called, incredulous.

She turned, her eyes widening in surprise. "Antonio? Is it really you?"

We approached each other slowly, as if we feared that the other might vanish at any moment.

"I can't believe it," she said, smiling. "I was just thinking about you last night."

I laughed, shaking my head. "Me too. It's… strange, isn't it?"

"A little," Giulia admitted. "Damn, it's really strange, isn't it? As if time has brought us back here…"

We sat down on the sand, talking about the twenty years that had passed, about our lives, our fulfilled dreams and those we had abandoned. And as we talked, I felt something shifting, as if the past and present were merging into a single, perfect moment.

"You know," Giulia said, playing with the sand between her fingers, "there's something I never told you."

Her tone had changed, lower, almost trembling. I looked at her, noticing how the dawn light reflected in her eyes, giving them an almost magical luminosity. She was the same girl I remembered.

"What?" I asked, feeling my heart quicken.

Giulia took a deep breath, as if gathering all the courage in the world. "All these years, I've never… I've never really stopped thinking about you."

I remained silent, stunned. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore suddenly seemed deafening.

"I know it sounds crazy," she continued, her cheeks flushing pink. "But that night, that kiss… it meant more than you can imagine. I always thought it was just a teenage crush, but over the years I realized it was much more."

Giulia's words floated in the air like soap bubbles, fragile and precious. I felt a lump in my throat, buried memories resurfacing with overwhelming force.

"I tried to forget you, you know?" she went on, her voice cracking slightly. "I had my relationships, I got married… I tried to convince myself that what I felt for you was just an idealized memory. But every time I met someone, I always ended up comparing them to you. And no one… no one ever measured up to that memory. But never mind, all this makes no sense…"

A seagull flew low over the water, its solitary cry merging with Giulia's words. The sun had now fully risen, painting the sea with golden reflections.

"I don't know how to explain it," she said, finally raising her eyes to meet mine. "But it's like a part of me has remained anchored to that night, to that kiss. As if, somehow, I always knew we would meet again."

My heart exploded in my chest. Giulia's words resonated within me, awakening emotions I thought I had forgotten.

"I… I don't know what to say," I admitted, my voice hoarse with emotion.

Giulia smiled, a sweet, slightly sad smile. "Don't say anything."

We kissed passionately, a kiss that didn't have the innocence of the past, weighed down by desire.

We broke away from the kiss, both breathless and with our hearts pounding. It was then that I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. A figure in the distance, motionless on the beach.

I blinked, thinking it was an illusion created by the dawn light. But the figure was still there, and as I stared at it, a shiver ran down my spine. There was something familiar about that silhouette, the way he stood, his hands in his pockets.

"Antonio?" Giulia whispered, noticing my fixed gaze. "What's wrong?"

I didn't answer right away. The figure moved slightly, and in that moment I understood. We weren't alone on the beach. Watching us was me. Me, older.

He – I – was looking at me with a mixture of nostalgia and understanding. His hair was streaked with gray, his face marked by wrinkles that told stories I didn't yet know. He was wearing a worn leather jacket that I remembered always wanting as a boy.

Giulia followed my gaze, confused. "Who is that?"

"Don't you see him?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly. "It's me. Like that time, twenty-five years ago."

She looked at me as if I were crazy, but before she could say anything, I – he – gave me a knowing nod. A faint smile touched my lips, and in that gesture, I saw all the wisdom that years had given him.

It was a surreal moment, as if the fabric of time had suddenly thinned, allowing us to see through it. He – I – said nothing, didn't approach. He remained there, a silent witness to a moment that, evidently, had remained etched in his memory all those years.

Giulia squeezed my hand, bringing me back to the present. "Antonio, are you okay?"

I nodded slowly, my eyes still fixed on the figure in the distance. "Yes, I'm fine. It's just… I think I've understood something important."

He – I – raised a hand in greeting, then turned and began to walk along the beach, moving away, to vanish into thin air.

He woke up suddenly, his heart pounding like a broken drum. The room was immersed in a gray twilight, barely illuminated by the light of the full moon filtering through the half-open blinds. He brought a hand to his chest, as if to calm that irregular beat, then let it slide over the rough blankets. They were heavier than he remembered.

He sat up, with an effort that seemed immense. Every movement brought with it a protest from his muscles, his bones. He felt his body heavy, tired, yet strangely distant. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught his reflection in a mirror on the other side of the room. An elderly figure stared back at him. Him. Me.

"What the hell…" he murmured. His voice was hoarse, trembling, as if he wasn't used to using it. He stood up, staggering, and approached the mirror. Wrinkled hands, covered with swollen veins, rested on the wooden edge. He looked into his eyes, and that's when it happened. A flash in his mind: he – I – young, in the same room, wondering if he was dreaming.

The memory hit him like a whip. He saw himself looking in the mirror, but at that moment he wasn't old. He was in the present, or so he believed. He remembered that feeling of unreality, that subtle fear of not knowing if he was awake or trapped in a dream.

"Was it a dream… or was it real?" he whispered, and his – my – reflection returned the same confused look.

He took a step back, shaken. His eye fell on the alarm clock display. 3:27 in the morning. He flinched. He picked it up, opened it.

Then, like an electric shock, another flash in his mind: him, still young, seeing the clock stop, the hands frozen.

He returned to the mirror, almost pushed by an invisible force. He stared into his eyes, and for a moment he seemed to see the young man he was – that I was – trapped on the other side of the glass, in turn confused, in turn lost in doubt.

"What if I'm his dream?" he thought, and that thought took his breath away. The young man beyond the mirror – me? – seemed to move suddenly, as if he had heard the thought. Then he vanished, leaving only the reflection of the old man.

A shiver ran down his spine. He sank into the chair next to the bed, clutching the clock – the alarm clock – in his hands. The ticking echoed in his ears, hypnotic, almost a murmur.

"I'll never know…" he said, his voice breaking. He closed his eyes, trying to remember, trying to cling to something concrete. But everything dissolved, like sand between his fingers. That sand from fifty years ago.

The last thing he heard was the ticking slowing down, slowing down, until it stopped. And then silence.

When the room was still again, the mirror reflected only the empty room. But if someone had been there to watch long enough, they could have sworn they saw a young man fleetingly pass in the reflection, then disappear into thin air.

Giulia looked at me, searching for answers I couldn't give her. "Antonio… who was he really? And what did you understand?"

I smiled, squeezing her hand tighter. "That time doesn't take anything away from us. It gives everything back to us, one piece at a time, when we're ready to understand it."

We stayed there, sitting on the sand, watching the sea continue its eternal coming and going. And in that moment, I felt a peace I hadn't felt in years. I had rediscovered something I thought I had lost: not just a memory, but a part of myself, the boy I had been and the man I hoped to become.

Giulia rested her head on my shoulder, and together we remained silent, as day took the place of night. There were no more questions, no more answers to seek. Only the present, stretching out before us, like an endless beach to walk on.

Then I woke up.