letter number five.

Did we know anyone else in Asolo who was named Chiara, weren't it an uncommon name amongst the people there, like gold and diamonds and friendlinesses are everywhere, at all times? In Naples, I've found two others who are called by your name, but they have adopted other attributes of yours as well, they are also long gone, I visit them sometimes at the cemetery, I pretend that their names on the tombstones are actually yours, my hometown is after all located half a map up north, you would have to be a bird to flee there so freely, so easily. The carnations I toss off are yours in the same way, pale and see-through and already as good as gone.

This liberty I've claimed, to plant a seed in your memory, she has grown strong throughout the years and although she looks like her mother with her autumn-coloured hair and her skyline look, though most importantly her eyes aren't the same blue as the sea, she also looks like her mother's past lover and therefore, it's your spirit which lives on in diminutive.

In her, the little one. Chiarina.

These days, she is my last remaining love. What remains of us, Chiara, doesn't even have a postal address. We, my beloved, loved each other, yes, but we are homeless now.

letter number six.

The little one reminds me of us when we were children, Chiara, we were as untiring and innocent and just as carefree were we, we knew nothing of the dangers of the sea, because Asolo lay surrounded by mountains and the coastline was a day's journey away, longer even than we could travel in our imaginations. We dreamed of fish tails, but we barely knew what water was back then, we only knew of what we drank and of bathing water from taps, happily we turned our faces upwards toward the drops that might fall from heaven, but water wasn't an element in our understanding, it was no necessity, it was pure fun. Asolo wasn't familiar with the ocean as a condition, our mountains didn't smolder either, they were made of stone and slept far longer than any Vesuvius' thousand year slumber.

They slept without waking, they slept like the dead do.