The Little Book of the Dead - Giovanni

 

Deep, the well of the past. Unfathomable when one discusses and questions the past of man. An enigma, and this enigma we are. We enclose our existence within. Body against spirit, a conflict by nature. This we are — the alpha and the omega of all questions: "Why do we exist?"
And the deeper one digs, the more one is consumed and suffers. Self-knowledge is pain; pain unveils that death is what one must prepare for.
Everything inside speaks to us of those who died before, they too, bottomless abysses.
Descend you must into them. Traverse them. One after the other. Until the last and final abime.

I ask you, Giovanni, who have you been?
Word speaks you were a life lover. Word speaks you were un donnaiolo. Women you loved,  perfume, and dressing up. You loved reading books, and you loved politics. Volterra, you loved, where you founded a socialist circle.
You were a peasant, an uncommonly well-educated peasant. This I know.
Word makes world, and I grasp those words that spoke of your world to me.
The tales of your deeds, the tales of my parents and grandparents, I must rely on. 

Can those words consign what you have been? Do those words shine your true self?
What was the abime which built you up to be what you were, to me?

I know how you died. One Sunday after lunch, you said, "I am tired, my dears, I need to sleep for a while".
You went to your room and you slept forever. You never woke up. That was your farewell to the world that accompanied you.

Where are you now, Giovanni?
Where are you lingering on? Where? Are you still alive? What is the place you abide?
Where is your soul speaking to me from?