THE ROCK

The Marlboros pack was half empty. I lit one, trying to remember where the nearest shop was. Silence filled the valley, and the few horses, in small groups, swished their tails—as if trying to break the monotony of that autumn afternoon. November up here always comes hand in hand with a metallic sky, a steel sea that seems ready to pour down bullet-like rain at any moment. It's a gift for those who love the cold season, for those who can effortlessly tune in to its frequency. In my car, I hadn't been able to appreciate it — trapped between the static of the radio and the concentration these mountain roads require. Roads that do not forgive, inhospitable to those who rarely tread them throughout the year, much like the few inhabitants of the area.

Objects do not have a soul, they're neutral by nature. At times, we're the ones who imbue them with a touch of humanity. The same goes for roads: we design them with our journeys in mind, using tricks to make them less hostile and indifferent to our passage. That couldn't be said of the roads I was traveling that morning, far from civilization and carved by force — much to the mountain's dismay — into its rocky flank. These roads go beyond indifference: they seem deliberately unwelcoming, openly expressing their annoyance at being crossed. They have a vindictive soul.

The occasional visitor in Spring is their chosen prey, on his way back from the restaurant where he spent hours, tipsy and satisfied. He's eaten, drunk, talked (too much, as wine and superficiality often cause). Maybe he's even had sex in that old, battered car of his. Off he goes. Starts the engine. A disgraceful scene begins, one that moves you to compassion: he's seized by a nervous fever, his driving is nervous, edgy, imprecise. He gets through the first bends unscathed. His wife, in the passenger seat, mutters—not quite silently. She wants to be heard, yes, but fears that scolding too openly might only make things worse, feeding the hysteria shaking this fragile man in his fifties. To openly reprimand him would, in effect, mean stabbing to death two central pillars of his self-image as a "man": that of being a skilled driver and of always being in control. "Please, love…" sighs, brushing his hand. He knows full well the caress is a trick to soothe him. He smells her lack of faith in his driving. She doubts whether he's truly, properly a man! Half an hour earlier, they had argued. The usual, childish pretexts. They mask deeper issues — hidden for various reasons: fear of facing something that could threaten the relationship, or a desire to control the other, demanding attention, carefully measuring out recriminations and self-pity. Now that hand, that damn hand which just moments ago, trembling with rage, had pointed a finger at him. "She thinks I'm an idiot... look at her, not trusting me, this bitch" Reaction: shoves the caress away, snorting like a bull, tightens his muscles even more. Outside, the road: bumpy, icy, uneven— also cruel, vengeful, murderous. It watches them silently, waiting. One small misstep. A second-late gear shift. A brake pressed too hard. One hits the other and lets go of the wheel for an instant. An observer on the cliff edge, overlooking the abyss, might almost glimpse the road's ravenous smile—like a predator about to lunge and tear into its prey. The fatal moment: the void, the screams, the metal that turns into a prison for lifeless bodies. –

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I stubbed out the cigarette. The switchbacks kept going up, the repetitious scenery did nothing to help my faltering memory. "The straight stretch should start here, at the mountaintop…" I mumbled. Time-blurred memories were becoming more and more vague. Not only had I been gone too long, I was also showing just how little I'd managed to retain of past experiences. It hurt to admit it—a pain almost physical. The more I proved to myself that I remembered little of these places, the stronger my need to guess a detail became—an ancient tree, a roadside votive shrine, a sign marking the beginning of a mountain trail I might've walked, who knows, many winters ago.

'Remembering' is improperly used here. It wasn't just about 'recalling something', like a deadline or an appointment. These memories were living matter, vital magma—what gave meaning to the life lived among these valleys and mountains. Dredging them up from the past meant honouring the time I had spent in these places—the version of me who had stayed here, forever.

I stopped the car. Breathless with panic, that lump in the throat that comes before crying. "If nothing remains, if you managed to hold onto nothing, you passed through this part of your life like a ghost. You left no trace here, just as these places left none in you," I whispered. The ice-cold detachment with which I had been received chilled my blood. I felt like a trespasser in a foreign land, watched by a thousand nosy, judgmental eyes.

Time passed—a lot, to be honest. I decided to walk toward the nearest village, whose name I still remembered (that much, yes—the lifeless shell of reality. I was chasing after things made of nerves and blood, the living reality). It was an instinctive yet perfectly logical gesture. As a boy, I had walked these roads: stepping in my old footprints might stir memory.

The crisp air filled my lungs. I moved from the roadside to the forest's edge. The pull grew stronger with each step, until it became a physical need. A gust of wind carried the scent of the underbrush: bare earth cradling the hikers' feet, oak and chestnut leaves forming a carpet, moss dressing the bare stones. My stride shifted into a diagonal, like approaching nervous animals without startling them. There was, unconsciously, an understanding that only an aimless wandering - lacking a clear destination or goal - could unlock the distilled memory these places had kept for me.

Wanderings like these return the true essence of a place, since the walker becomes open to whatever that place offers, by chance. These are walks nearly incompatible with everyday life: there are no conscious steps to follow in sequence—you guide there; in wandering, you are guided.

So it was without realizing that I found myself deep in the forest, surrounded by trees and memories now coming up from the depths. Confused, vibrant — each one demanding a piece of my attention. The initial detachment with which I'd been greeted gave way to a new warmth — the wild, festive embrace you receive at family celebrations. I was completely overwhelmed. My mind was so stunned that I had to touch the bark of the trees I passed just to ground myself—to be sure I was there. "Here they are… the traces of your passing… it couldn't have all vanished, something was saved…"

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Why had you taken the car on a normal mid-November day, heading into the past? Why had you left your apartment like a possessed man, nothing in your guts but the coffee from a moka pot drained in a hurry, run to find your parked car, started the radio before the engine, the cigarette pack bought the night before, smoked on the road… to this forest? You felt you'd almost forced yourself to come, rushing as a trick to avoid overthinking.

Hiking, I arrived at the hilltop that opened flat on the mountain's summit, overlooking the village. The tiny sanctuary, the stone bench, the wooden table where religious processions would end — among glasses of red wine and a few innocent curses swore under their breath. A path opened in the clouds, the sun gathered speed and dashed through it, diving into the hilltop. The question remained unanswered. Why return to these places?

The memories that had flooded me like a wave in the woods were now laid out before me, in the sun. I searched for the answer to my question in the faces and stories passing through my mind. The beauty of the places, the destroyed family home, the group of friends I'd left behind as adulthood approached— seemed more like pretexts, too superficial to explain what instinct told me was a kind of reckoning, an existential turning point. I continued taking mental inventory, motionless. I'd been here with my fiancée just a few months ago, showing her everything I knew of these places. I wanted to intertwine threads and weave a shared story that would bind us. These places mattered to me.

Talking to yourself can be tedious—at least at first. There's always a layer to uncover, a cushion the mind places to protect the soul's more fragile strings. It's a clever, even wise trick: pure will wants to go straight to the point, but the mind's hands must soften before touching certain thoughts—they must become flesh.

I went around it, made hypotheses. I realized I'd followed, in thought, a spiral: hours earlier, I had been far from understanding, overwhelmed by the desperate search for memories that felt eroded; gradually, I had recalled and sharpened the experiences, the people, the stories. Now I felt closer than ever to grasping the essence of this journey, both an inward and outward.

Sitting still on the bench, warmed by the sun, I felt that distance, the coldness I had initially sensed between myself and these once-familiar places, had not disappeared. It was still there, off to the side, but ever present. I was sweating, wrapped in my coat and bathed in sunlight, but inside, I could still feel it. It was the cold of estrangement: that invisible but solid glass panel between once close people and now strangers, separated by time and by the proud refusal to take the first step toward reconciliation.

I could no longer focus on the memories and turned all my attention inward. The question remained.

Why cover hundreds of kilometres just to come here? To drive backward in time toward memories from years ago? Until that moment, I had been looking for signposts that would lead me to a clear answer. I had recalled places, faces, stories, paths, loves, processions, and arguments.

Sitting on the bench, I wondered if I was still the same boy who once wandered from one village to another. The question touched the deepest, hardest core of identity: that nucleus which, while everything around and within us changes and evolves, tends to remain still. The rock we see as children in the sea while building sandcastles, which we find again, elderly, one idle winter afternoon, when we've nothing better to do than take a walk where the air is clean.

Not all rocks are the same. Not all cores of identity are equally firm. I'd learned this the hard way, at great cost. Truly understood it only in recent years. A lifetime-long process. Full of turns and reversals, trials and adaptations. In the end, I'd understood.

It made no sense to betray myself to please others, even if it benefited in the short term. Being hated is a problem. Being loved by everyone is a bigger one.

I could no longer live off the values and approval of others, I had to chase authenticity at all costs: would have made me vulnerable, yes — deliberately exposed and honest —but I would have finally felt alive, right, consistent.

Being authentic would have been hard at first, causing tension, but in the end, people would have respected me. They would have sensed they were dealing with my truest self, they would have admired the courage to change so radically. 

That I had even been selfish— ultimate irony: victim turning into murderer. By perpetuating that crime against myself, hadn't I, over the years, prevented others from forming deep connections with me? Did I deny them the chance to feel pure, unconditional love for me? To touch, even to see, the original instead of a poor imitation? With them, I had tried to build bridges, merge solitudes in the name of something greater. Was it all a performance? Had I lied, first and foremost, to myself? Yes — I was now sure of it. Everyone, myself included, was a victim of that tragic selfishness.

It's true, I had done it all only to feel safe, to have some of my needs met. I'd gotten carried away. I'd forgotten who I was.

Inner life follows a rhythm no one knows—not the rules, but the timing. The threads of this life move silently, and you never know how close you are to the next turn. Perhaps because reflections, thoughts, sensations, and unconscious impressions are the things that fuel this kind of hidden existence. You live and experience things: all of it slowly settles at the bottom of the soul, tiny particles that, over the years, build up until the liquid overflows, triggering change.

I had come up there—unknowingly, on an ordinary day—to say goodbye to my old self. Those places told this story so well: I was still in the paths, the trees, the roads, the bell towers, the fields, even in the elderly of the village. It was a farewell. And that cold detachment I had felt first was the estrangement from all that I had been, even the loathing for my former life, for all those years lived in deceit and inauthenticity.

THE ROCK