Bad Moon Rising

Chiara woke up at four thirty with a buzzing headache. The afternoon sun seeped through the shutters with a powerful insistence, enough to envelope the tiny apartment with a soft light. Drowsily, Chiara opened one eye and the first thing she saw was the inconsistent flecks of dust dancing in a tube of light. The sunray ended on the only chipped tile close to her bed. Out in the street, right under her window, a garbage man noisily dragged a plastic trash can on the san pietrini, while whistling a jingle she remembered listening to a million times on the radio.

Music. She hated it. Mozart, Dylan, Battisti, the Beatles, Mannarino. All of them. Their songs had the power to shape her mood more than the weather or the 628 bus running late. She found it unbearable. She would feel like conquering the world, then listen to Dylan’s The Times Are a-changin’ and feel a lump in her throat two minutes later. That was why her iPod was buried deep inside one of her drawers. She hadn’t used it for years.

With a faint grunt, Chiara rubbed her temples and gave a look at the clock on her night table. She had slept for seven hours but her headache seemed willing to prove the opposite. She spread her arms across the double bed and touched the cold sheets close to her side. Her right hand landed on a package of cigarettes. She grabbed one mechanically and brought it to her lips. She lit it and inhaled a long drag. The smoke climbed up in the air twisting in a sophisticated and intangible arabesque. The room became as misty as the Roman forum at sunrise, a spectacle she had seen so many times while coming back home.

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