There’s an inherent coolness to Spoleto, different to the
typical rainy day in the States. The sky, a puffy shade of gray, twirls, as it
always does, with the promise of downpour. The birds twitter somewhere far off
while a man gargles a microphone, even farther. To my left, a flock of old
people (balding men with heads like cul-de-sacs, women with faces that collapse
on their cheeks) bunch on patio chairs waiting for a mass bike ride. They talk
to each other as one of the elderly ladies falls back into a chair with a groan
straight from the movies. I wonder what
the man on the speaker is saying, his voice sounds hollow, grumbling but
serious. I think of old war movies, the disastrous man on the microphone—I
dream of emergency, while the old people laugh, brushing their knuckles on
their bare knees, smoothing the hem of their shorts, while the sky continues
swirling in its endless layer of gray, and the birds continue trying to out-sing
the microphone. The maid sweeps by, a small pail of dirt in her hands, the
bucket as green as the hills somewhere behind me, in front of me. She bends
over and her black dress chokes her thighs. She dumps the gritty flecks over
the branches of a freshly potted bush, and I’m reminded of Umbrian rain again.
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