Familiar Strangers

by Freya Radford (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection Italy

The city stank of seduction. An indigo twilight hung over the water, as a cloud of smoke snailed past the rising moon. The streets were quiet as if they were holding their breath, waiting, waiting, waiting. For the locals knew that this was when the city truly came alive. When the swarms of tourists deserted the palazzos. When the endless click of photos shuttered closed with the shops. Oh yes, the streets were waiting, breath held in excited apprehension, and it was almost time for the night to begin. For it was under the stars that Venice was reclaimed by those who truly knew it, by the gente del posto. Two golden-haired lovers entered the silver moonlight. Their bodies shimmered in its gaze as they wandered through the history of the city. She did not walk, she danced, leaping between fountains, twirling under arches and tiptoeing around canals. He followed behind, light simply by virtue of her love, which emanated from her very being and reflected in his eyes and off the lagoon. They were familiar strangers to the city. She felt it the moment they arrived. For Venice welcomes any young couple in love. The passion of their love reflected its passion, their youthful desire could find no better home than here, and the city welcomed them with an easy embrace. The girl felt this familiarity in every new discovery she made, it was as if she was rediscovering an old friend, one who endlessly enriched her life. “In here Arch!” her voice cut through the silence so still it appeared sacred as she pointed towards a small taberna on a street corner. “In here,” she reiterated, as she took his hand and they ducked into the smell of tobacco, alcohol, and life, a smell so overwhelmingly both timeless and ephemeral that she was forced to momentarily suspend herself within it. It was now that he saw them. His pitch-black hair scattered with silver like the night sky and his Aperol Spritz spinning in his hand. It was then that he saw them. Before he really knew what, he was doing, he had shouted out – “Ciao!” – and was waving them over to join him. He felt ridiculous in doing so, acting like these two strangers were family, but Venice was changed that night, and, once again, the two strangers had been claimed by the city. For, in seeing these two golden-haired lovers, a rich vein of recollection had been ignited within the old man. Their love reached into the back corridors of his mind, circumnavigated its deepest corners and emerged with a gleaming memory: one of youth, love and one, most strikingly, of Venice. The girl was shocked by the sight of the old man and his greeting. Wrinkles stretched like canyons across his creased face and even his voice bared the strain of a life spent longing. But beyond this, lay eyes which spiraled into a cacophony of colors; of a dew green which drowned in an Atlantic blue, and a cloud of effervescent stardust which sparkled above. Most notably though, the man’s eyes were as honest and as open as any child with a soft glimmer which betrayed the dreamer within. She left the boy at the bar and, as if magnetized, walked towards the man, put out her hand and sat, without so much of a greeting. “So”, he whispered, in a heavy Italian accent, “You found it too.”