Luca Cappai

We’ve decided to go to S. D.
In the end, the loan that was supposed to be used to renovate the house… I’m going to use it for this trip instead.

A friend of mine has already been there and strongly advised me against staying in tourist resorts if I don’t want to find my woman in bed with the entertainers. Apparently they especially target married or coupled women.

He knows from experience. The idea of S. . came from S. and I immediately said yes, no hesitation.
We’re bringing as much as possible. We’ll probably spend more on excess baggage fees than on the plane tickets themselves.

She’s the packing master. She’s definitely traveled way more than I have. I’ll just stand there watching how perfectly she folds everything.

We’re still deciding on dates. She’d like to stay a whole month, I’d prefer just two weeks.
I’m going to miss my TV. Right now I’m sick of it, but it’s a bit like living with someone for fifty years: you feel their breath on your neck, yet you miss them when they’re gone.We’re thinking of leaving early September. The 10th would be fine for me. She wants the 8th.
I’m pushing for the 10th because I’d like to at least tidy up the bathroom first. Since I can’t renovate it now, I want to put things in order. I should at least remove the wobbly and broken tiles.We know September there is scorching hot, so we need to go shopping beforehand and buy all the summer clothes, swimsuits included.

Knowing her, she’ll buy dozens. She’s not exactly the type to watch her spending.
One of the things I love most about her is exactly that: her generosity.Since we’ve both already been to S. A. we know a bit of S. but I want to level up my language skills. I already knew a female tutor who teaches online and I’ve decided to contact her.

But first I call Silvia:“Hey darling, listen, I need to talk to you about the trip and what we should bring.”
“They’re talking about a trip on TV right now too, I was just watching it. Go on.”
“You see, what we’re missing is…”
“The headphones?”
“…Yeah, but how did you know? Are you reading my mind?”
“I just read it in a Facebook post.”
“First on TV and now Facebook? Silvia, I have no idea what you’re getting at.”
“I’ve been watching you for months, everything you write… we need to talk. Maybe we need an expert.”
“An expert in what?”
“That’s exactly the problem: I don’t even know.
Men are always thinking about sex…

We went out, we went down to the beach and you didn’t even kiss me!”
“And what is this? Did you hear it on TV?”
“No, I was reading your tweets.

A friend of mine was talking about a guy who didn’t kiss her, he even wanted to put his hands on her…”
“I don’t understand.”
“Ah, you really are thick as a brick.”
“Sorry, but why are you reading my tweets? And since when do you even have Twitter?”
“I got interested in social media when I started noticing certain coincidences. You were driving me crazy.”

“And you’re telling me this right now, just as we’re about to go on holiday?
And why did you choose Santo Domingo of all places? Don’t tell me you’re taking me to therapy…”
“Not therapy, but it’s going to be a slightly unusual vacation.
Sorry, but didn’t you have a problem?”
“My hands?”
“No, something else?”
“Maybe there’s a specialist in Santo Domingo who can fix my problem. Wait: they’ll glue my hands so nothing falls anymore!!” S. has been feeling bad for about six months, ever since Luigino started writing stories with no apparent logic, nonstop and with pretty terrible grammar.
She even managed to sneak a look at the texts he had never shown her.

She noticed something strange. At first she wasn’t fully convinced. She thought they were just coincidences.“What did I ever do to you? Why are you so angry with me?” says Luigino, alarmed.
“Luigino, what are you talking about? Are you okay?”
“Listen, you’re talking about heresies. To me this is just nonsense.”
“I haven’t even told you what it’s about yet and you already know… see, that’s…”
“That’s what?”
“Listen Luigino, you’re pissing me off,” Silvia suddenly snaps.
“Now you’re the one freaking out?”
“I can’t take this anymore. I don’t even know who I’m talking to.”
“Silvia, come on, spit it out. I want the truth. It almost sounds like you’re about to tell me I have some disease.”
“Disease?”
“Tell me, do I have cancer? Am I dying?”The thing is, it can’t be explained in a few words, and it might not even be easy to make him understand.

S. knows he hates long speeches, so it will be very hard to hold his attention and get him to really concentrate.
She stays elusive, perplexed, hesitant to openly address a situation that feels increasingly disturbing.If this continues, I see myself slipping into a phase where reality is breaking down, but I still don’t know why.

Telling me could compromise my mental stability.
Yet that’s exactly the point: her own mental stability depends on telling me the truth, on letting me know.Let’s be clear: I have a problem. Every time I pick something up, it falls out of my hands.
At first we couldn’t figure out if it was just distraction, slow reflexes, lack of concentration… none of that.
The real issue is that in those moments I’m not inside myself.
My mind wanders, I slip into other people’s heads.
While I’m holding cups, glasses, plates… everything crashes to the floor.
But it doesn’t only happen when I’m holding something: it happens often at other times too. It’s just more noticeable when I have something in my hands.

When I “leave” myself, I lose control of my nerves, of my motor energy.Silvia doesn’t know this yet.
Right now she isn’t analyzing this problem, but another one.
And she doesn’t realize that this is actually the most important one — the one whose real answer lies on the other side.When I write things that seem to make no sense, at least on the surface, I’m actually writing a mixture of other people’s thoughts.
Overlapping words from strangers, even entire thoughts.
I don’t even notice things falling.

While it happens I’m thinking about something else… exactly.We haven’t known each other long. Just a few months.
Yet S. has already sensed this phenomenon.One day while we were in bed, she was giving me a massage and I was smoking a cigarette.

Right when she stopped for a break, I dropped the cigarette.
Strange, because her body was no longer vibrating from the massage.
These are unexplained things.
But maybe Silvia has found an explanation.
It’s as if, when I “disconnect” from other people, at the same time I connect somewhere else.