BEAUTIFUL CONSEQUENCES E-Book

Gian Franco Pepe

• Herausgeber: lfapublisher
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Lisa's life, apparently perfect, hidest the lack something else and she, lost in an attempt to
find out, was it ends to get lost more.
She lives in Brazzacco, a village near Udine, with her husband Giorgio and her son
Luca,dividing between family and teacher's work. Her world, to her more and more tight, it
force her to cream her dreams, when instead imagined chasing them, to live with the only
purpose of research happiness.
Then one day she meets Marco, a man capable of mixing her life with one glance.
To reset everything, by doing she born again. Lisa lives their love story, passionate and
tormented, through a diary, inside the what there are words, thoughts, poems, that
accompany her in a journey within herself, made of hopes and lost dreams.
A journey that brings Lisa to understand to have the only desire it happiness, without ever
experiencing it really.

Leseprobe

Gianfranco Pepe

BEAUTIFUL CONSEQUENCE

- ROMANCE –

Gianfranco Pepe

BEAUTIFUL CONSEQUENCE

Romance

This work is the result of fantasy any reference to facts,

people or places is purely casual

LFA PublisherLello Lucignano EditoreVia A. Diaz, 17 -80023-Caivano -Napoli, ItalyPartita Iva 06298711216www.lfaeditorenapoli.it --- [email protected]

Distribuzione cartacea Libro Co. Italia -Firenze -

To my father.

We’re never too old to set another goal or

to dream of another dream.

C.S Lewis

Time is only a conviction

that smokes certainties

and changes intentions in repentance,

when turning back,

we realize that we have lost it.

Chase your thoughts away,

regain control,

no… that’s not the direction.

Go back, start from your steps,

you can’t get involved,

you don’t have to indulge them.

Here reason,

do not be fooled,

many times a gust of wind,

even if pleasant, announces a storm

and you are still in time to take shelter.

SEPTEMBER

I

Each of us knows himself. He knows what are the things that can make him feel good, those that can make him happy and others that are harmful. Yet most of the time, we don’t recognize our malaise or know how to deal with it. We drag day after day a weight of the soul, slowing down, until we completely succumb to our fears, to get to the point where you prefer not to do, not to think, frightened by analysis on the choices made and consequently on you mistakes. It would be enough to make peace with oneself, avoiding to hide behind a wall of repentance, which have as their only solution the contentment of their own life and of flashes of happiness destined to disappear almost immediately. We become so insecure that we get lost, waiting for that moment that will never come, defeated and unable to dream.

The sound of the saxophone of Your latest trick, coming from the clock radio, made her opened her eyes in the warmth of the dark, pleasantly disoriented. With her right hand she turned off the alarm and turned on the lamp on the bedside table. In the yellowish glow of the room, she turned to look at the shape gathered under the covers of her husband, realizing that she was in her bed, in her home, in her world. She lay still for a while, in an attempt to recompose every fragment of her life, then with an efforts she gathered up her certainties and pulled herself out of bed.

In the two meters distance between the bedroom and the bathroom, Lisa felt the anguish dozing with her the night before and tried unsuccessfully to rinse her, together with her face, before putting on her makeup. A little mascara on the lashes, a pencil line around the eyes; she had never liked too much makeup. As a girl, all she had to do was put on a lipstick, look in the mirror just long enough to straighten her hair and go out.

Outside the window, the twilight exploded in the sparkling air of the early morning, animated by the crescendo of tweets, leaving she completely indifferent concentrated in front of the mirror: high school teacher, forty years old, a life spent in regrets. Lisa moved closer to the woman reflected in the mirror. The new wrinkle that appeared around the eyes did not seem to interest her much, she was more careful to check her face in search of the girl who left too quickly, bringing all her dreams with her.

She went downstairs and entered in the kitchen. Saturday was the day when tension could finally be released. The whole week slipped away after dragging her, and she could, in a way, feel free. She put her work bag on the chairs by the table and in her solitude made coffee. While the mocha was muttering, she had placed a pile of notes and checks on the table to quickly tidy up before going to work.

In one compartment of the bag, an orange leather bound diary was hidden under the daily diary and a few sheets, and she touched it feeling the soft contact under the fingers. Desperation came forward, Lisa bent over herself with her forearms pressed against her body, to avoid scream, suffocated almost immediately in tears.

It is always difficult to move forward when it does not see beyond your torment. That constant rethinking of what led you to not be happier. Your start with alternating between moments of calm and those of agitation, between tears and joy, which hide the total lack of ability to stay in balance.

She managed to take courage, in a minimum time between pain and resignation, while outside the dawn mixed the colors of a new day, for her, equal to the others.

Each of us should know ourselves, or better understand our moods, feel the smallest changes, recognize the closure stages. We end up becoming spectators instead of actors, while everything flows in front without having any chance to interfere, unable to change the course of our life. Let’s start by sinking into that abyss made up of expected opportunities, gradually going lower and lower until reaching the bottom. Yet there is something incredibly true about being one step away from the bottom step, the certainty that from then you can only go up. Turn your back, take a breath and start the ascent, all this with an absurd happiness on you, only because we can glimpse a light, albeit in the distance. Or maybe it is only our imagination that makes us see it, when going up, we realize that it is easier to go down. We then cling to anything that gives value to that effort made against all logic. In the end it would be much simpler to let it go, to consider one’s inability, to submit to defeat, to let the current drag us.

As every morning Lisa wakes up her son, she prepared breakfast and waits for him to be ready to accompany him to school. This was her ritual. Except Sunday, where she loved to shut herself in the bathroom, fill the tube with foam and perfumed oils and immerse herself in. In this microcosm made of silence and thoughts, she felt another woman, and finally her anxieties, her fears, were washed away together with the water.

On the other hand we let ourselves go, It is inevitable when we abandon our dreams, completely sucked into reality. Mind is completely addicted and no longer rebels, but the spirit points through the organism. It wiggles, contorts, sends unequivocal signals. Someone calls these symptoms stress, someone else almost whispering depressive states. We become more and more apathetic, indifferent to life, without urges and push. Everything becomes monotonous, repetitive, a firm body moved by inertia, unable to rebel, to recognize one’s own evil.

She arrived late to school, a small queue, caused by an accident on the highway, had broken her monotony. She hurriedly entered in the teacher’s room, greeting with forcefully chewed good morning, sitting behind the large wooden table in the center of the room.

She was so immersed in herself that she barely noticed the man behind the other end of the table. Sitting among the other professor, he was talking to Marina, his geography colleague, who remained glued to him, while he pretended to listen to her.

He look at her for a moment before smiling at her, then with a nod of his head in a bow, he reaches out to shake her hand. «Pleasure. I’m Marco Zanardi, the new professor of math.»

«Lisa Parussini, the professor of history», she replied in a firm voice, standing on her chair, waiting to give herself a certainty she knew she didn’t have.

She continues not to give him much importance, so closed in her silence that ménages to estrange herself completely. Now addicted to her life, closed between family and school, she had lost all enthusiasm and forced to live in regret of what she wanted to be.

When do you really start to regret? When we realized that we are no longer young, when the light-heartedness of dreams leads us to believe that everything is possible? Or when the things left behind remain as indelible footsteps and we are sure we have walked a little, convinced instead of having gone far? It is not the road traveled that gives us satisfaction, not the satisfaction of having reached a point that makes us feel satisfied, but the obstinacy of always going forward perhaps the real regret lies in not being able to believe anymore.

Lisa felt the insistence of the man she had just met in staring at her and this annoyed her. She had always felt uncomfortable when someone looked at her and this time was no exception. She opened the register pretending to read, adjusted the lock of hair on her forehead with her fingers and crossed her legs under the table. At that moment, out of curiosity, she looked up. He curled his mouth to one side and lightly pronounced his lips, smiling again. He was certainly a handsome man, tall, dark hair, with broad shoulders and well-placed physique. He certainly did gym or maybe swimming. The symmetrical features of his face exalted his thin and overwhelming eyes, his way of smiling mesmerized, enough to force her to concentrate again so as not to look up. He sat sideways on the chair, a little behind the table, his left forearm resting on the backrest and between the fingers of his right hand he was twirling a ballpoint pen, with a safe area, covered with a halo of charm.

Yes, he was certainly a handsome man, yet he was uncomfortable with Lisa.

Her deep eyes fanned her from behind the table, focusing on every detail: the blond hair gathered behind the head, the fleshy lips covered with a thread of lipstick, went down along the shoulders, then the neck, until dwelling on the blouse open slightly in front. Again they went back to the face, thin eyelashes, green eyes, highlighted even more from a pencil outline. They dug and spied more and more a deep down, as if wanting to read inside her.

The embarrassment scene was interrupted by the arrival of the Headmaster. Lisa felt relieved to see him enter, despite not had ever tolerated. At least he had diverted attention to she thought.

To be honest, it must be said that the principal Nicola Olivo was unpleasant to most of the school. Grim and with a way all his to want to appear nice, he was famous above all among colleagues for her brazen advances. With a shrill voice, annoying, every word was an allusion, a clear statement of his being a pig. Fat and always sweaty, he spoke to you less than a few centimeters from your face, forcing you to breathe the smell of sweat and cigarettes touched your hands, arms, shoulders, enough to make her feel violated, raped.

Yet that morning, Lisa almost felt like thanking him.

«Good morning everyone!» began the principal. «I see that you already have met Professor Zanardi, our new alternate for mathematics.» Then turning to him, looking at him from above, he added: «I hope that your stay in this school will be best. I’m sure he will be able to live up to the teacher Degano, our esteemed colleague, absent because of maternity leave.» He said those words without worrying too much to hide a slight horror inside them. The teacher Degano was his pupil, a sort of factotum which he managed at will. Her absence was only for him a nuisance. «Follow me into my office professor. I show them the schedule and lesson times.»

Lisa moved her head slightly, giving him a quick glance and realizing she’s being spied on again. She spun around, as if she had been the one surprised to look at him.

Outside, the rain beat on the large windows and on the canopy of iron from the gym below, so strong as to remind her the street percussionist listened to as a girl during a vacation in Florence. The African boy who used dishes, pots and pans jars, produced a rhythmic metallic sound, much more pleasant. The memory gave her a start, looking back on those days far away where she was free and confident.

What happens to dreams? Where had he hidden them? Lisa doesn’t remembered it. She had no memory of his past life, when she was happy, carefree. How many times as a girl had imagined her future: when I grow up I want to... The haste of girl to grow up, she ran together with her dreams, always side by side, always with the same step. Finally a woman, suddenly realizing the truth: she and her dreams had run on two different tracks, two parallel lines that never cross.

It was still early to begin her history lesson. Pending Lisa decided to read the book she bought on some stall days before, in the small market in Piazza XX Settembre in Udine, concentrating to the point of forgetting the noise, rain, school.

The sound of the bell started the lessons. Lisa picked up quickly the books and her notes and went to the door holding them close. When she saw him standing a few steps away from her, say new was embarrassed. How ridiculous you are!

Marco had gone back into the room without her noticing and now he was chatting with the secretary in front of the door. In seeing her approach he waved her hand, giving her the step. «You are welcome.»

Lisa simulated a smile with a grimace of her mouth, then lowered your head looking for the exact place to put your feet. She walked down the corridor to the classrooms, walking among the colleagues and latecomers, with the same rigidity as a soldier during a parade, to avoid looking back. She knew about to be followed by his eyes seeing him come out immediately after her. She entered the classroom quickly, as if she wanted to hide from a danger, meanwhile a voice inside her covered the noise of the benches and chairs shifted between laughter and screams, telling her something not to she understood. One of those voices difficult to distinguish, not to know never whether to listen or ignore them. Maybe she was doing them simply notice the way that man you just met, he had turned his feelings in one fell swoop, giving them an embarrassment different than usual. By now she was used to the fact that men looked at her insistently and sometimes she succeeded even to imagine their thoughts.

Yet he was not at first simulating sinful thoughts, on the contrary he was admiring her, as can be appreciated a painting or a flower of particular beauty.

It took her a while to understand. In reality she hadn’t felt at all in awe, but something new had washed her off what had been normal for her so far, namely feeling clumsy and awkward in front of others.

The truth is that for the first time, in front of a man, she was felt flattered.

AUTUMN

II

The clear air throw the mountains in the distance, until they touched the sky, making them appear so close that they can be reached with a jump. In the blue, milky white clouds, they formed figures and the clear light framed the streets of the center of Udine, where the coming and going of people, gave the impression of many ants busy in their work.

Lisa particularly liked that climate: the typical air of late September that warms you, making you want to do.

Around the tables outside the bars, someone took advantage of the rays of the sun, to take off the sweater and stay in short sleeves, while the noises were closed outside the restricted traffic area, increasing the desolation around her. Under the arcades, hidden in the shadow of Saturday afternoon, Lisa ran her thoughts, occasionally crossing faces that she paid no attention to. Lives other than her who did not imagine the cliffs from which she looked out, seeking meaning in God, or in a cynical destiny cruel. From behind the Ray Bans, she occasionally stopped to watch the windows, a way to rest from the mind’s fancy flights, indulged as the only solution to silence her anguish, that took her breath away by suffocating her. The face contracted by a sudden dense in the heart, she made her eyes narrow for a moment and a memory altered the perception, until it gave the impression to live a déjà vu.

In front of the windows, the gaze did not go beyond the glass, limiting itself to contemplate her reflected image. Probably any other woman would have envied her, had a satisfying job, an affirmed husband capable of not missing anything, a son she loved. Despite everything, something was missing, immersed in the deepest, hidden somewhere, a silent pain bitten her soul.

The pupils dilated, focusing her figure better. Anyone would have had no problems stating her beauty, her forties seemed to amplify her still more, certainly not because she felt this way, but it was enough to see how men looked at her, hearing theirs at every step eyes glued on. Yet Lisa felt the weight of the years. Time flew ahead of her, and she was forced to chase after it, seize it.

«Personally I prefer black.» A voice by her side had it turned around, finding Marco’s smile in front of her indicated one of the clothes displayed on the mannequins. «Sorry, not I wanted to scare you.»

«Hello. No, you didn’t scare me. I was only thoughtless.»

«I was walking across the street when I was I said, I know that beautiful woman.»

Lisa nodded a smile that showed a slight shine shyness line, feeling the same embarrassment when she had known him at school. Now stop! You look like a teenager. She shrugged in an attempt to drop it from off, while he was still shaking her hand and not realizing it she stepped back to free himself from a hold that moment she tied her, as if a few centimeters were enough to make them shield.

«I have to admit it though, I didn’t recognize you right away», Marco continued, looking at her with admiration from head to toe. «You are very different today.»

To tell the truth, she liked to leave her with her mouth open men. Bear their compliments between their teeth, but alone until these became vulgar. It was as if a second woman lived in her, overwhelmed by the first shy and clumsy, capable of showing off that bit of vanity. She liked to dress according to fashion, correcting those details deemed too risky, redefining them in such a way as to make them appear more appropriate to a married woman. So she managed to feeling in your own way rebellious, always careful not to go beyond the border of her shyness.

That afternoon she had left home with light ripped jeans at the height of the knees, a leather bolero, which it made from perfect curtain to a white gabardine blouse, below who could see the folds of her generous breast, everything to enhance those fabulous sandals bought a few days earlier, thanks to the advice of Anna, her best friend. She had them seen when they had gone for a ride to the mall. Lisa was determined not to buy anything, but those sandals they seemed to be right there waiting for her. «Look at these, that beautiful!» pointing them to Anna, clearly enthusiastic.

«Why don’t you try them?» she replied, glancing at her of understanding. It was not enough to say more to encourage her. Not why she was an eternal undecided, but simply suffered from a strange form of insecurity and always needed to seek support of someone in what she wanted. «Wow! They’re there very well! And then they are so tall, they will push your ass even more», Anna replied, giving her a playful pat on the bottom. Anna was thus, exuberant and irrepressible, her exact opposite. Together they formed yin and yang, they often said to each other laughing.

She would never have admitted it, yet Marco ‘s way of she was beginning to like looking at her. He was so discreet, attentive, profound, so much to feel crossed.

«Can I buy you a coffee?» Marco asked, stopping by blow the state of grace and bringing it down to earth.

Lisa was again agitated, stretched out to the corner of the sidewalk, hoping perhaps to see someone I suddenly materialized to take her away from there, then she looked at the tip of her feet for a moment, just long enough to think of a sorry enough to leave.

«I’m sorry, but it’s getting late. I have to go home.» At the end was the only thing she managed to say.

«Come on, I think the world can stop for a coffee?» Marco encouraged her, continuing to stare at her with a look that disarmed her.

Run away! She seemed to hear, it was the voice inside again her, but this time she had started to speak clearly. She knew of having to listen to her, yet for a strange reason, like wanting to challenge herself, she found herself walking beside him.

After all, what was wrong? She kept repeating herself, trying in this way to justify herself.

Enter the small café hidden in a side street of the course, Lisa looked around, realizing she wasn’t there never been. Marco moved her chair, making her sit at one tables overlooking large windows.

In the not very large room, a soft atmosphere broken by the buzz of the few customers and the clinking of the cups gave one pleasant peace. Once inside, she had the impression of being observed by all. She glanced sideways at the distinguished gentleman seated reading the newspaper, in the corner of the counter. The guys on the right, crammed around the table, they chuckled while drinking chocolate hot and sent messages with mobile phones. The young couple at the back of the room, intent on exchanging tender effusions and little farther on two friends began to confide in each other. It was a relief for she found that no one had noticed the two of them.

A tall, dark-haired boy with his arms tattooed outside rolled up sleeves of the shirt, went to their table with a kind smile. «Hello. What do you want to order?»

«A coffee for me.»

«Two coffees», added Marco. «So Lisa, how many years teach?»

The question gave way to ease the tension created by the unconventional situation and even if it was a meeting with a work colleague, the same could not hold back some discomfort. For this she tried to concentrate so disguise it, but the more she tried to do it, the more it appeared evident. She kept wondering what was so hypnotic about him, to prevent her from evading.

«About fifteen years. And you?» she replied returning the question.

«Much less. I graduated late. Let’s say I got it comfortable.»

They laughed together, while the waiter put the two on the table coffee.

She took a quick look at her cell phone, barely pulling it out of the bag. She wanted to make sure there were no messages or call, or rather, that her son and especially her husband, don’t they had looked for her.

«Why did you choose to teach math?» then she asked, putting the bag back on the empty chair to his right. Yes she had realized the stupid question herself, but at that moment it seemed the only logical thing to ask.

«I’ve always found it a fascinating subject. There is one beauty in numbers that you hardly find in real life. Apart from you, of course.»

Watch out Lisa! Again that voice, this time it seemed wanted to warn her.

«While we tire of constantly looking for certainties capable of giving meaning to everything we do, with them you can be sure not to be wrong», Marco continued.

«Are you someone who needs constant certainties?» the question this time it came spontaneously.

Marco smiled shaking his head «No, on the contrary I am a dreamer. One of those always with his head in the clouds.» Then he added quickly, as if to justify himself. «Anyone has dreams, places projected in time where we imagine to change our life. Some try to make them, others instead after a while they surrender, considering them only hopes eventually unfulfilled.»

«It is an interesting topic and I partly agree. I think, however, that dreams should be pursued when the product of your responsibilities is not due to your actions. Unfortunately, in the grow, you understand that their purpose is only to get away from reality.»

«It’s not quite like that! Or rather, this is what they want us to believe. I’m not saying I live with my eyes open, a mental movie where you watch the various spectator scenes, I talk about living your dream, implement it, working hard to make it true. The truth is that when we stop dreaming we lose the best part of ourselves and inevitably to imagine that everything is possible, it would be enough to want it.»

«If it were enough to want things, then we would all be happy», she snorted those words stifling a slight disappointment.

«I admit that said this way, it seems ridiculous. Believe me, we can truly be what we want, just there forget. Making your dreams come true must be a goal and if this means going against the current, then it must be done despite the effort. Nobody says it’s easy. Too often we settle on things much more handy, even if then they leave us dissatisfied, because what we want must be conquered with sweat and we prefer to give it up for fear of to be disappointed, realizing that we have only thrown ours away time.»

«I believe that time should never be wasted on trivial things.»

«Who knows why we consider time something past, worry every time you have wasted it», Marco grinned. «Dreams are never futile and precisely because we shouldn’t never waste our time, we do it every time without taking care of it.»

«No! Sometimes you find that what you want goes far beyond your ability. It would be much wiser to understand what you are is able to realize and after build a dream.»

«This is because, many times we are fooled by the fakes dreams. Everyone has the ability to understand things to accomplish for be happy, just listen to your instincts.»

«You’re not serious, are you? Instinct is something that unites us animals, fortunately we are endowed with reason», objected Lisa.

«We often confuse instinct with impulsiveness, but it is clear that it refers to self-awareness. It is more intuition that it makes us aware of the present in order to understand what are our wishes. Maybe this is exactly the trouble end, the inability to listen without being contaminated by reason.»

«Listen to your instincts and follow your heart», Lisa declaimed. «What nonsense. Personally every time I have listened to my instincts, I found myself regretting it.»

«Sometimes you have to make mistakes, in order to do the right thing for we.»

«Come on, let’s not talk nonsense!» Lisa exclaimed.

«Instinct and the heart work in harmony, it would be enough just to give it straight. Our instincts know exactly what the heart does wants. You know what are the fundamental things for us and even if at in the end we regretted having lived them, what matters is the emotion of that moment, capable of making us feel alive.»

«I’m sorry, that’s not exactly how things go. Yes have responsibilities, which cannot be overlooked, just because, experiencing an emotion makes you feel alive», she replied irritably Lisa.

«How long have you stopped dreaming?»

Lisa was surprised for a moment, it’s not the kind of thing there she expects someone to ask you, but she really knew he owed him give reason. While trying to oppose his reasoning, she realized that in reality she only contradicted herself. Had stopped following their dreams leaving them abandoned who knows where, somewhere far away. And now those speeches, they did re-emerge all her dissatisfaction. She shrugged shoulders, hanging over that question, when suddenly realized the situation. She had a capable man before him to seduce her only with words and eyes. Then she understood that the tranquility gained up to a moment before, was leaving the place again to a growing unease. What was she doing there? Because had he agreed to follow him? You are a married woman, in company of a man, who is clearly trying with you! There her mind focused this thought, shaping it to the point become threatening.

She settled into the chair better and brushed her hair away, moving them behind the ear, in an attempt to control themselves. She felt the agitation, to take more and more possession of her, much to having to find a way to look away. She stared at each of the advertising prints hanging on the walls covered with wallpaper in fabric, she looked up at the pendants of the chandelier in the center of the room and looked through the bottles, piled behind the long mahogany counter.Each time, however, she found the eyes of Marco waiting for he. «Cute here! I never came.» Lisa tried to change speech, with its increasingly evident discomfort, to the point of seeking once again to hide it, finishing sipping her coffee with controlled calm.

He looked her straight in the eyes, his lips barely moved. «Yes, it’s a nice place, it has an atmosphere of times gone by. Romantic.»

She heard Marco’s voice change, become lower and warmer. The buzz around had disappeared, the room suddenly seemed to be was emptied. Who was that man? Why did it have this effect? Lisa blinked, to wake up from a numbness. Lost in her eyes, she was completely sucked into it.

She had to get out of there!

«It’s getting late», she said pointing to the pendulum clock on the wall. «I really have to go now.»

She stand up and take her bag of the chair, greeting him without even looking at him, then going out on the street, run away, not now from what. She walk fast and in the same time she continue to repeat in her head what stupid her was. Surely right now, he was laughing at her. Stop that! She warned herself, determined not to think about anything anymore.

The road to Brazzacco climbed through the hills red hues of sunset. The air imbued with the smell of the needles of pine, bathed in the autumn rain, enveloped the landscape, where isolated houses looked out into the distance here and there. Lisa was returned to her normal state, if for normal it could be called her alternating anguish, of which she was a prisoner. She was driving towards home, trying to get as far away from loss as possible, that mixed her moods. A confusion permeated her on him, leaving her even more to extricate herself from the net thoughts, whose origin she didn’t know. She didn’t understand why yes she found herself thinking of Marco, a stranger capable of insinuating himself between the tears of her life, without her allowing it. She had never been attracted to another man, outside of her husband Giorgio and was now invested with an interest out of every logic, without an apparent possibility to escape.