Smooth sailing today. The currents took me towards the rising sun, east. The sea was calm, only some slight and monotonous ripples moved me up and down. I stumbled upon a bunch of sardines. Or perhaps they were anchovies? Never been able to distinguish them well. I was wrapped like a cloud, a frantic fog. I watched them closely, quicksilver, thousands, and then, suddenly, they swam away. Perhaps a bigger fish chasing? Or a strange call, incomprehensible to me, had attracted them somewhere else? I do not know: I didn't see anything, no big fish, no chaser. They disappeared and I found myself again in the endless blue. Nothing to report.
The sea is a bit rougher today: now I see the ripples of waves. They rise slowly, ripple at the top, become white foam and then descend. And on and on, for miles and miles, to die on a beach they don't know, a continent whose name is unknown. Nothing else to report.
Yesterday's little ripples have become a storm. There is not only the white foam on the top; everything is white, everywhere. The angry sea roars under a sky struck by dark rumbling thunders that give life to agile and fast lightning. And, as shaken by many hands, disorderly and chaotic, from right and left, the waves run towards each other, meet, collide, break and shatter into a myriad of projections. Water breaks the water, and the fragments are still falling into the water and become waves that grow, rise, break again and reform growing water again, breaking again until the storm ceases.
The sea has slowly become quiet. After two days the sky is as blue as the water again. Just a few little white clouds over there break the blue. I should not be very far from the coast: I see many different things around me. An olive branch, for example. Snapped because of the storm here, and there the wind uprooted branches that the rain brought down, down, sliding until the creek, and then through the torrent into the river, more calmly and with more strength, without boulders that impeded its movement, without loops in which it could get stuck, my branch was eventually led into the sea, and came here, near me. From the glass of the bottle, my house, I saw it move and almost touch me. I was almost wrapped up in its leaden, thick and tough leaves, which had resisted the seas and the years.
Look... next to me, not far from the olive branch, another bottle: the current has brought us closer. Amazed and astonished, I stared at her for a long time. She was there, gazing over the mist that fogged her and when it was cleared, she greeted me and smiled. I waved at her with my hand and she waved back, and a warmth I had long forgotten caressed and embraced me. So I greeted a second and a third time, and I think I looked like a puppet to the seagull flying above us in search of something alive to eat. And she, in response, began to greet me, made signs, but I did not understand what she wanted to say, except that she wanted to communicate with me. But how? We smiled at each other and she began showing me how to make an A. And so I made for her a B. She nodded vigorously, her face intent, corrugated and thoughtful, and showed me a C. I did not realize it at first, but then, thinking about it, I understood. I moved my hands again and, as far as the narrow space of the bottle allowed me, I suggested a D. It was not easy, perhaps she had another idea of a D in mind, but in the end we managed to understand each other. We both placed our hands on the glass. We could not touch, but I felt her close, as if the bottles did not exist, as if they were no longer a barrier. And then she started with an E, but that letter was not easy. I tried to understand what she meant, but every time I seemed to have grasped the meaning, it escaped me. Is it so? - I gesticulated - or rather in that way? And she nodded or denied at all my attempts, trying to get me to grasp the meaning of that letter. I thought I had finally, if not understood, at least grasped the meaning of her words. Then the sea swelled. The foam came back, delicate at first, almost a wreath on the waves, then more powerful, eating the blue. More waves formed, shy at first, then bigger and bigger until they became high, very high. And I was tossed again to and fro, up and down.
The storm has ceased. The endless blue is back, only a few white clouds in the sky. The water is calming down, but I can't see the olive branch, and the other bottle has been dragged elsewhere by her currents.
Smooth sailing today. My currents are carrying me into the setting sun, into the west. I look around and I try to spot her, leaning as I can, but I just can't see her. I don't think I understood the E, and I don't think I ever will. Nothing else to report.
Italian
Italian
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