Those words rebound on the keel of the funny missile, that arrived here, in the Country That Is Not, in an unexpected day and in an unknown time.
The missile, with the pointed beak, with the fish- like body and with the fast bird-claws, jerked and a puff of stream came out, exhausted from the back turbines.
A deaf moaning darkened the shading of the setting and the metallic chatting of the gears echoed it. Also the Children of the Bullseye suspended their breath at the gravity of the hard sentences and the bitterness was confused with the firmness, the sadness with the rebellion .
They did not utter a syllable, but in the light of their eyes their mission was clear. The fairies had to be born again, and again the laugh of a child would have generated a fairy.
And all the children, especially the Lost Ones, would not have been lonely anymore.
Peter approached the glass eyes of the fish-like being; weaving in the air yarns of suspended thoughts, the same that had arrived to his ear “Ah yes! Do you have the boldness to attempt such an adventure? Who are you, to dare so much?”
Two thin faces of a little boy and a little girl took glances behind the window. “We do not know who we are, nor do we know why we are.
We were crested by an artist’s mind, who put us up here and forgot to give us a name”.
The Little Girl continued: “We remember that we were born in September last year; it was a rainy day and the missile I landed in the well of an ancient house of Ferrara. I think it was named CASA CINI.
Our stay lasted very little. Maybe less than a month. Everyone looked at us and chatted. Sometimes they opened their eyes wide surprised; wide smiles rubbed their faces tired of life .
But nobody gave us a name. And so we decided to leave and to look for our name in the place where the sun is born.
Days passed, moons set and new moons were born, the seasons lowered lazy their shadow, which was becoming fatter and fatter on the extents of meadows, lying on the horizon.
When we were lucky we exchanged joyful dances with the many- coloured kites in the sky.
Once we accompanied a montgolfier for a short while: its Journey was long; it had to go around the world in eighty days.
To tell the truth we let the montgolfier sit on the top surface of a missile that kept it with its claws and so, travelling at full speed, we saved it twenty days of crossing.
We flew over woods thick of gnomes, dotted by speaking rocks and by chattering and wandering trees.
In the far heaths of the impossible we met a fearless girl, Dorothy, in company of her dog Toto, of a scarecrow, of a tin man and of a craven lion.
They went to the Wizard of Oz.
We went there, too: Maybe he would have told us our name.
He told us that we were in the wrong fairy- tale.
The flight started again and we met many other creatures on our way. We tried to be adopted by Snowwhite, but she already had to care about seven dwarfs.
Sadly, we flew in the heights of imagination, keeping far away from adults, who could not answer our questions.
Clouds thick of humours sweetly fondled our sleeps, while the faithful missile complied with the freaks of the wind, riding on it skilfully.
Only once it pitched, mad about a bird, that- with its open wings and its narrow beak- pointed the south- west.
It was really struck by a lightning; a thunderbolt hurled the bird on the earth, gashing a hay loft.
It lay on its back on the ruined hay, while it clutched an uproaring bundle with its ruffled feathers.
Our missile assisted it, revived it and tried to begin a stumble in verbs. But it did not obtain more than some thanks and the awareness that it was a stork up with a packet that had to be sent. Not even a date. To “her” the missile was too pointed and metallic.
It was not her ideal man, after all, with a little bit of disappointment, the missile dragged on for metre and then again; after a big long sigh, it let the engines trill and we pointed east: we felt lighter and lighter until- on the horizon- the Island That Is Not appeared.
Then the easy landing, avoiding the vessel on which a hook dominated; a hook that gesticulated imperiously; and there were lazy crocodiles with their open mouths; and one of these crocodiles ticked as if it had a clock in its stomach and then your words…so this is our story.
Alberto Gambale
