READING by Ascanio Celestini with Gianluca Casadei on accordion

We were taken by surprise by the pandemic, but we interpreted it.
They showed us the picture of the parasite and also the numbers, maps that change color as the virus spreads, and graphs.
We have a rational idea of the disease.
We handle it so well that some people are even denying it. But that high number of deaths disoriented us. And at first we thought it was really the number, the quantity. Instead, it is a matter of quality. We are no longer prepared for death. Dead bodies don't make a big impression on us. They don't perturb us that much. But we are shocked by the nothingness that takes them away. We don't know what to do. And if they take away the body of the deceased we are completely bewildered. My mother and grandmother would set in motion a whole series of small and large, conscious and unconscious rituals. They would have known what to cook and how, what to drink and eat, whom to call and what words to say to him, how and where and when to pray. We don't. We need the material things. Without the body of the dead we remain motionless with empty heads.

So I got into storytelling and writing. To do something that didn't have a body. Because mourning is as intangible as memory, words, and dreams.