I’ve run to the romantic city. The sinking city. Years before she’d asked me if we we could go, together, and now I’m here, alone. The waterways are green-blue and the yellow-fronted houses are crumbling. Henry James wrote of the empty palaces, I’m here to write of the emptiness of the whole adventure. On the bridges people use selfie-sticks to take photographs. They’re wearing cagoules and hiking boots in the height of summer. They’re Swiss, Chinese, Australian. Centuries before artists sat there and painted, masked beauties spun and danced and sung, merchants plied their goods on rich, happy Venetians. Now we have this. A festering city. An empty city. Imbued with narcissism of a different kind.
Venice smells. There’s something rotting in its belly, something other than the foundations. Raw sewage and faltering expectations. I came here because I thought it’d be a place I’d be able to forget all that which had come before. I’d seen pictures, photographs and paintings, and was struck by it’s beauty, one I had seen re-imagined time and time again. I ran from England. I ran from Stansted. From the bus, I ran to the waterways. I dived onto a gondola and said, take me away from here. In the bars I drank wickedly. There’s only one or two, the others are closed. Too many drunks drowning in the canals. On the bridges, wavering, wobbling, I look into the water.
I see myself down there and don’t want to take a selfie. This is not the Venice I’d wanted. The pigeons are too fat, the squares are too full and the tourists are too rude. Where is the distant music? The soft pastels of the view? Not this solid blue sky bearing down on me, whispering hot words into my ears, enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself. I can’t enjoy this. There’s quiet alleyways where I can pause for a moment and take in a smell I’ve just caught. For a moment I forget where I am. I am antiquity. The drink works it’s way around my body, I feel like I’m floating in time, watching from above the plane, as if any moment a man in a long robe, sparkling with jewels, his face masked, like a bird, will emerge from around the corner, beckoning me. Instead I hear the squeal of a child. The roar of an air-plane. I didn’t want any of this. Years before she’d asked me to come, and I’d said no. Now I’m here. Alone.
Stories in Short #23 (Slaughter the jiggling jigglers, in the basement, down the narrow steps)
Stories in Short #22 (The glittering senselessness of alcohol)
Stories in Short #19 (Good old dog)Stories in Short #19 (Good old dog)
Ah. I love Venice.
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Have you visited??
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I have
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I haven’t! Haha. All these details about the place I’ve heard through the grapevine, I tried to emulate my desire to go there in my character. One day!
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Lovely piece. I agree 100% about the smell and about the reality not meeting expectations. That said, I enjoyed visiting the Doge’s Palace- the height of bling.
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Have you read the Aspern Papers by Henry James? He does a great job describing the city, and the story itself is very well rounded. Thanks so much for your comment, as ever.
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I haven’t. I love HJ, so I’ll check it out.
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It’s a short one, usually paired up with the Turn of the Screw (which is another great story! first written thing that actually gave me chills.)
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I love your description of the imagined doge. Vivid and apt.
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Thanks so much, I got lost in a wikipedia hole and read all about the Doges of Venice and they just fascinated me. Had to include one in a story!
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Sounds like you’re, finally, fulfilling that lost dream…and, it’s not, turning out as well as you may have hoped, but you already knew that…
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Everybody has to get to their dreams at some point, just sometimes they’re not at first what they appear.
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