The eighth-grader who secretly reads feminist novels with explicit sex scenes and whose heart has been broken by the boy in classroom 8-B plucks leaves from the lower branches of an olive tree with her friend. She sweats profusely under the hot, lazy afternoon sun as they each fill their opaque white, wrinkled nylon bags with leaves. You can wish for anything, her friend assures her, one leaf equals one wish. The next morning at 5:30 AM, sleepily dragging their feet, both girls follow behind the friend’s mother and two elder sisters, carrying the same nylon bags and holding hands. If they talk, they do it in sweet whispers as they pass through the slumbering streets. Upon arriving at the beach, the woman and the girls bare their legs and feet before walking into the night-cold sea. The instructions of the eldest sister are easy: Take a leaf, wish upon it, throw it into the water, and splash it further in the sea. If they catch a ride upon the waves and get dragged back to the shore, your wishes won’t come true. The eighth-grader who secretly reads feminist novels with explicit sex scenes and whose heart has been broken by the boy in classroom 8-B holds a leaf tightly between her thumb and forefinger and shivers through her ragged breaths induced by the chilly waves trying to reach higher and higher on her body. The pebbles hurt her soles. The girl fixes her eyes on the pale, pinkish horizon, concentrates, and makes her first wish. She watches after the leaf that floats toward the open sea: coy but steady. She realizes that she has lots of wishes and lots of leaves, yet only a couple of dreams. One is to be a famous poet, and the other is to be infamously free.
antoniovicentini