The Black Fables E-Book

Ursula Coppolaro

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

"The Black Fables" is the first collection of short stories by Ursula Coppolaro. As can be deduced from the title, the correct term would probably be "fable" instead of stories. Because this is Ursula in His narration always inserts a moral background, characteristic of the genre of the Fable. This collection shows us how it is possible, even in 2014, revisit, correct and expand a genre That is deepened since the time of Aesop and Phaedrus, but as it is Also possible to add something new: a bit of macabre and noir. Phaedrus Already teaches us That the story is not always a happy ending, and not always win heros. Ursula Often stays halfway between a pessimistic and an optimistic, showing worlds with dark gray shades. Characterized by a slender, essential style, the prose of Ursula is accessible to all, but not unfluent, or less suited to convey a concept That is Often Overlooked in the modern world: a moral That lesson can be drawn from experience, Whether it be literary or real life.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Introduction

Biography

The Daughter of the Sun

The Good Witch

Esmeralda

Jack and the Haunted Pumpkin

The Eternal Friendship

URSULA COPPOLARO

THE BLACK FABLES

Introduction

“The Black Fables” is the first collection of short stories by Ursula Coppolaro.

As it can be deduced from the title, the correct term would probably be “fables” instead of stories, because Ursula in her narration always inserts a moral background, which is characteristic of the genre ”fable”.

This collection shows us how it is possible, even in 2014, to revisit, correct and expand a genre that has been deepened since the time of Aesop and Phaedrus, and how it is possible to add something new: a bit of macabre and noir.

Ursula often stays halfway between pessimism and optimism, showing worlds with dark gray shades.

Characterized by a slender, essential style, the prose of Ursula is accessible to all, but not unfluent or less suited to convey a concept that is often overlooked in the modern world: a moral lesson can be drawn from experience, be it literary or from real life.

Luca Gini

Biography

Ursula was born in the years when the US President Richard Nixon resigned because of the Watergate scandal, in the same years when the Enterprise was built, when the first prototype of the Space Shuttle and punk music and fashion were born.

As soon as she learned to read and write, in her letters to Santa Claus she started only asking for books of classical and modern literature and for gothic and fantasy novels.

She was conceptually and stylistically inspired by authors such as Charles Baudelaire, William Shakespeare, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Banana Yoshimoto and Charles Bukowski.

The Daughter of the Sun

When the explosion of the reactor of the nuclear power station had shaken the windows of the house of Cloe, her parents were making love.

Seven months after, she was born, daughter of the air, water and land contaminated by the most powerful and devastating energy of the universe.

Since her first cry everyone realized that she was a very special little girl, unique in the world.

She had a completely soft body, similar to that of an enormous maggot, she did not possess any kind of skeletal support nor she had arms and legs.

Her skin was clear, almost transparent, it was possible to see her heart beating and the blue blood vessels that entirely enveloped her like roots.

Her face was funny, round and plump; she had beautiful blue eyes; instead of a whole nose, there were only two small nostrils, like two little holes; her mouth was small and without lips.

The doctor who let her come into the world, vomited in the middle of the delivery room; two of the three nurses who assisted him had an illness, only the eldest took her and washed and placed her in an incubator for premature babies, where she stayed for five long weeks.

Her parents went to see her only once and never returned.

She was taken to a large facility, a school for special children like her; she was locked in a room furnished only with a bed made of iron and a single small window with a very thick glass and protected by massive bars.

The staff left her there and went away.

She smiled and looked at the ceiling, staring at a spider which was making its web, and fell asleep almost immediately.

Three years passed and Cloe, who didn't cry almost never, spent her days rolling around on the floor and singing. Actually only she knew she was singing: attendants, doctors and nurses were disgusted every time she uttered those guttural sounds.

Which way could she know how to sing? She could not even speak, no one had ever taught her anything, she was spending her days completely alone, except when a very stout man with no hair brought her meals, but never saying anything.

The only other occasion in which she entered in contact with people was when, once a week, always the same man together with two other men, one skinny with long hair and one with glasses and grey hair, made her get into a cage and brought her in a large white room with a hydrant to wash her, removing from her body the excrements, flies and mosquitoes that clung on her daily. Unfortunately she was sweating a lot because of her great shapeless body.

Even in such occasions those men never said anything; sometimes they were heard laughing while waving the hydrant and saying: “It's just disgusting. A freak of nature I've never seen before, and I think I've really seen a lot of monsters!!!”.

Another five years passed, and Cloe grew visibly; she had become gigantic and weighed about ninety kilograms; now they did not even bring her out to be washed: she smelled and had many wounds scattered all over her body, her skin was more transparent, it had become thicker and grey.

Her eyes, however, were still beautiful, but she stopped singing and spent her days staring at the sun through the bars of her small window and at night she often cried. She could not understand why, but she felt very lonely.

One day a letter came: she would be moved to a place run by nuns, a place for abandoned children. The Director of the structure where she was housed had many doubts about letting her go, but there she would die very soon, because the cell was becoming too small and would cramp her.

Spring came, and one morning they put her in a large cage, which was loaded onto a truck.

The journey was interminable; locked in the dark, she was suffocating in the heat and sweating so impressively she began to cry desperately.

Fortunately, after a few hours they arrived at their destination; the driver unloaded Cloe in front of the religious institute and said something to the Mother Superior, who took her to a large barn near the church; the man was terrified while he was leaving.

The girl was very happy: that place was beautiful and she began to roll in the straw and laughing; three women dressed in black looked at her with a puzzled air, they were two fairly old nuns along with a young novice. The novice approached her and caressed her head; Cloe stopped rolling and began to stare at the novice: “what was that woman doing!?!”, she thought; Cloe did not understand because no one had ever caressed her before.

It was just a great feeling; she closed her eyes and let the novice do it, completely surrendering to the pleasure of the new extraordinary sensation. She tried to get up and stretch toward the novice to thank her, but she looked like a great slimy and threatening worm; the other two nuns began to back away screaming, but the one who had caressed her stood there, staring at her with a sweet look.

Cloe rubbed her body to her face and licked it: it was natural to her; having no arms and hands she could not embrace at all and could not give true kisses, because non one had ever taught it to her.

A gush of sticky and greenish drool flooded the face of the poor novice, but she was unimpressed, doing almost nothing and awkwardly just tried to wipe it off with a handkerchief, then said laughing heartily: “This bizarre creature is really full of love!!!”.

Three more years went by: the most beautiful of Cloe's life. She had finally found something very similar to a house, even if they did not let her out of the barn; the smell of the straw was sweet, the windows were wide and without bars; every morning the sunlight flooded into her new home and into her heart.

The novice came to see her every day; she read long stories while caressing her head, and every day she washed her with a lot of fragrant foam and a sponge that was a bit tickling.

Cloe had also learnedto say a few words: yes, no, thank you, sun, hunger, thirst, and the name of her beloved friend, “Sister Linda”.

One day Sister Linda decided to take a child to Cloe; he was very small and very minute, had blond hair and did not speak yet. She said that the child was Dimitri: his parents had left him in front of the church door five years before, so he had always been living with the nuns. He was a talented child, but did not yet speak properly.

Dimitri did not approach Cloe, he looked impassive, and when she tried to get closer to him he kicked her strongly in the face. The mouth of Cloe began to bleed and she retreated straight back and went to hide under a sheaf of straw, she felt heath and pain in her mouth and began to cry.

Sister Linda vigorously took the child by his arm and dragged him out of the barn, then turned back to Cloe, wiped her mouth and her tears. Cloe noticed that the novice was crying too, while she was tenderly cleaning her face. Before leaving, Sister Linda brought her face close to Cloe’s face and kissed her – no one had ever kissed her before that day – then the novice whispered: “ you’re not a monster, but people are afraid of you… if they could see you now, you are so beautiful; sleep well, tomorrow it will be another day”.

Cloe did not understand the meaning of the word said by Sister Linda, but she was sure they were good things and fell asleep happy, looking at the moon through the window and listening to the song of the owl. She dreamed that she had legs and arms and that she could run and hug Sister Linda.