Ultreia et Suseia
Good morning, allow me to introduce myself: I'm Tommaso.
How are you? We don't know each other; I’ve lived in your neighborhood since the day I was born.
I remember seeing you around when I was little, always escorting your son to the elementary school I attended.
Roughly speaking, he must have been about the same age I am today.
I had never greeted you before—even though I know exactly where you live and what you do—until today.
I say hello simply because our paths happened to cross during an early evening walk on this late January Sunday, as the sun was setting and the Po Valley seemed a little less apathetic and infernal.
Yes, I said infernal, because to me, hell isn’t that hot, crowded place everyone imagines; it is more like the icy, lonely abyss of Dante’s Lucifer, a hell of abandonment where the familiar fog that shrouds our fragile human nature is absent.
Today on my walk, you were the only person I truly noticed. Well, you were not the only one walking along the embankment; there were others, wandering with no destination but the beginning or the end, as if they had no time to look around and reflect on their own lives against the backdrop of nature that still clings to the outskirts of the city.
They stroll there when there is nothing left to contain, never pausing to consider the tears and effort of those who built the embankment after the last great flood swept everything away, hoping that what they suffered would not be passed on to their children and grandchildren—and that, indeed, we might never have to suffer.
I am here, walking like all these people, yet for me the embankment itself is the destination.
I lift my eyes and take in the view, much like one does upon reaching the summit of a mountain, leaving behind today's sunset while already anticipating tomorrow's dawn.
I greet you, madam, as one greets a fellow traveler encountered at altitude, not merely out of courtesy but because both you and I are on the same journey.