Change, It is a Comin'
It started out as one of those clichéd dreams, you know, the ones that everyone knows about but only a few ever dream them. She was flying, freer then she had ever felt in her life and she loved it. The wind was warm and the sun was smiling and nothing could be more perfect than just the feeling of being up there in the sky with nothing weighing her down and pulling back towards the hard, unfeeling earth below. It was perfect, it was heaven and Christiana never wanted to wake up from it.
Suddenly the air ceased to be air and the feeling of flight and freedom disappeared under the crushing weight of water. The blue-green wave kept pushing and dragging her deeper down into the sea’s depths making it harder and harder to breathe until Christiana violently woke up, sitting straight up in her creaky bed gasping for air. That seemed to be a summary for her life in that dream. Whenever she felt something wonderful, she was always brought back to reality, sometimes is the harshest ways possible.
“Christiana, mi amore, wake up! Come on, up! Up! The day is waiting!” Her mother’s shrill voice called up from the bottom of the stairs. Living in the attic of the house was wonderful for when she wanted to be alone, but it also meant that her mother yelled up the stairs to wake her up unlike her brothers and sisters who were lightly shaken from their slumbers. It’s just the curse of being the oldest she guessed.
She couldn’t linger long on these thoughts. The threat of her mother once again yelling for her to wake up was still there. She had to get ready and get dressed in the next few minutes before her mother had the chance to yell again.
Crawling out of bed would never cease to be the hardest part of everyday, even when it was a lumpy bed like Christiana’s. The dream especially made it difficult. She longed to feel that feeling of freedom again, even for a moment. So Christiana simply sighed resignedly and rolled out of her bed and walked across her attic loft to a small dresser that contained all her clothing, a wash basis and a small mirror. She took a moment to look at herself, as she always did. Her long dark brown hair draped down on her shoulders, a tangled mess from sleeping. Her olive skin shone in contrast with the white washed walls and her bright green eyes finally rested on the small crucifix around her neck. She took a moment to bring her index and middle to her lips before bringing them down to caress the small gold piece of jewelry. It was a practice that her mother had ingrained in her since childhood and 19-year-old habit was hard to break.
Her ivory comb was sitting on the same part of the dresser that it always was and once Christiana picked it up she let her body go through the familiar motions that start her every morning. Brush hair until perfect, wash face to appear fresh, brush teeth, spit outside the window into the bushes below, get dressed and go downstairs to eat. It was something consistent, safe, boring, but it was her life.
The stairs creaked as they always creaked going down the stairs to join her family for the same breakfast they had every morning. All her brothers and sisters were already down, waiting for her to join, Antonio, Carmina, Marco, Vincente, Giovanni, and Lucrezia, in the same order that they always ate in. Antonio being the second oldest, but the eldest boy had the seat to the right of her father, named Antonio as well, Christiana had the seat across from her brother and next to her sister Carmina, next born after Antonio. Marco and Vincente, the twins, sat next to each other on Antonio’s side and Giovanni sat next to Carmina. Lucrezia was still just a toddler so her mother, named Cristina, (sometimes Christiana hated that her parents named their children after themselves, or even loosely after themselves, it could make things confusing) kept her on her end of the table.
Christiana knew it wasn’t right to dislike siblings, especially small ones who couldn’t help it, but whenever she watched Lucrezia eat, or even Giovanni who was fast approaching 7 years of age, she couldn’t help but feel a stab of hatred. They were so messy and she had to clean the table and chairs afterwards, she had to do the laundry, she had to clean the floors that they dirty with their inability to keep food on their plates or in their mouths. Christiana prayed to G-d every night for forgiveness for these feelings of hatred towards her siblings as well as her parents, but nothing had yet happened to alleviate it.
Once Christiana had joined them, all 9 heads dipped down instinctively for a quick blessing on the meal.
Once that was done, 8 mouths went to work on the food that lay out in front of them, while their mother prattled on, “Sante cielo! It’s hot! Mio dio! Isn’t that right, Antonio? It’s never this warm this time of year!” Christiana’s father made a noise in agreement, but didn’t look up from his paper.
“Si, si, si, so hot, the poor farmers, having to sweat now more then ever! Good thing for us we have the shop! Right? We have fans and cool water from the fountain! Si? Christiana, mi amore, when you’re done your chores, come down, okay? You must work! Antonio is at school and Carmina’s too young! You must! Per favore?” Her mother had turned her attention to Christiana between feeding Lucrezia and wiping at Giovanni’s already filthy mouth.
“Of course Mama, right after I’m done.” She said submissively, there was no use fighting, she had learned that long ago. She had already made plans to go to the beach with a friend, but she could always just leave him there alone, once again, like always. The hate that she always tried to suppress once again stabbed at her heart and Christiana simply bit at her cheek until she could swear it bled.
Her mother just smiled, oblivious to Christiana’s pain and hatred. “Such a good daughter you are! Carmina, you should watch you sister, instead of being off with those…girls, if you could call them that, hooligans, wretches, those are other names more fitting in my opinion!” Their mother said, her disgust written clearly on her face.
“Mama!” Carmina whined. The conversation went on like that for a while. Her mother complaining and just talking, just always talking without saying a single thing with Carmina voicing complaints here and there while the boys grunted in agreement in the correct places. All of it the same, nothing ever changed in the house, and nothing ever would. So Christiana sat in silence, like she always had, like she always would.
“Mio dio!” Her father suddenly said clearly, he never spoke clearly before 9, everyone’s head lifted up from their plates to look at their suddenly vocal father. “The Mozzati’s, the young couple that lived just on the other street, they died.”
Christiana stilled at the information, the Mozzati’s were her friends, granted her parents didn’t know that, but it was still, it was like a punch to the gut. She bit down even harder on the spot in her cheek to keep herself from crying out. She needed to remain neutral; she couldn’t show her parents that she had friends who weren’t from the church, who didn’t partake in the same religion. After a moment, a coppery taste filled her mouth.
“Oddio! But they were so young! Not out of their twenties! Shame, what a shame. That seems to be happening more often nowadays, people dying. Sad, sad times these are.” Her mother rambled on and on, starting a familiar cycle. Christiana stayed silent and stayed still and just concentrated on not crying. It was becoming harder not to cry anymore. Tears just seemed to roll from out her eyes.
The rest of breakfast went the same as it always did. The chores afterwards were the same. Working at her parent’s gift shop in the center of Naples was the same. Tourists were the same, the only things that seemed to be any different then any other day was the heat for the month, and the fact that Christiana was trying her hardest not to forsake everything she had ever known in life. And even those were becoming more ordinary, just another part of her routine.
The day was finally ending, the sunset on the water sparkled and seemed to dance with the lazy wave, and Christiana left the gift shop an hour early to see if Raffaele was still there. She had left him alone at the beach so many times that she wouldn’t blame him. Why continue to do something if it wasn’t dependable. Things needed to be dependable or everything would just fall apart.
As luck would have it, Raffaele was still there, sitting on a beach towel in the middle of the beach. The one thing that drove Christiana crazy was that he would always sit in a different spot everyday, except for the days where he didn’t, and those days threw her off even more. He was always changing, always being different, and maybe that’s what she liked best about him. He was her window to a world where time flows, rather than stagnates. Things evolved in his world while things floundered in hers.
“So why this spot?” She asked as she sat down next to him on his beach towel. “What’s the reason for today?”
He smiled his bright toothy smile at her before turning his head back to the sea. “No reason, it’s just nice here. A good patch of sand as it were! Why? Not good enough for you, mia principessa?” He gently knocked against her with his shoulder.
“Shut up,” She smiled, laughing a bit at his comment, “I’m not a princess, and if I were, I wouldn’t be yours, so you can go and…swim with the fishes!” She teased as she knocked her shoulder against his in retaliation. Her hair swung to shield her face as she smiled at the towel.
Raffaele let out a pained gasp as he clutched his heart and fell backwards, “ Mio dio! Why do you wound me so! Mi amore! I will never see the light of day again! Not when my princess as told me that not only is she not mine, but I am to swim with the fishes!” He continued to make pained noises as he twisted as if in agony in the sand.
Christiana just laughed at her friend’s antics. He was getting sand all over the place, from his fluorescent neon mohawk to his black baggy jeans. He didn’t always dress like that, he seemed to change his hair color every other day, and his style changed even more so. He was the only person she knew who could go from a surfer look, to a geeky look complete with glasses, to what he was today. It sometimes gave her a feeling of whiplash.
Once he had stopped rolling around in mock anguish, he resumed his position next to Christiana. They sat in silence for a while, simply watching the sunset. It would have been perfect except for the shadows, there was something about them that didn’t sit right with her, but she ignored it for now, choosing instead to rest her head on Raffaele’s shoulder and close her eyes.
“Why green?” She asked sleepily.
“I’ve always loved the color green, you know? It’s a beautiful color, much like you eyes, mia principessa, just like your eyes.” He said placing a kiss on the top of her head and Christiana hummed in pleasure at the words and the kiss.
They stayed like that for a while longer. Just completely at peace watching the sun disappear beyond the horizon, but with the shadows lurking with foreshadowing menace.
The days and weeks and even months continued on in the same fashion it always did. Tourists came, tourists left, the sun rose and the sun set, all of it working like clockwork. Except, the clockwork seemed to have a few more kinks in it then it did before. The weather was becoming unpredictable, the unbearable heat one day, then a powerful thunderstorm the next. It even starting snowing one day causing entire streets to be shut down and people boarding themselves up in their homes. People would go to the grocery store and buy economy packs of all the basic necessities. It seemed no one understood what was going on. Farmers were in despair as they watched their crops fail due to the extremes. Many of them moved away to search for better land, many of them stayed and tried to do what was impossible, and an alarming amount of people went to the cities where it wasn’t much better. The government was useless as well. There was such a state of shock that there wasn’t really anything to be done. People were frightened and confused and no law the government passed, no regulation or increased police activity would help alleviate it.
For Christiana, the weather was not the thing to fear. Weather had always been unpredictable, which was a fact. The weather could change on a whim, fronts came in, fronts left, high and low pressures, it was in a constant state of flux, ever changing, ever flowing, so she made the weather’s fickle nature her constant. What was causing her grief and worry as the deaths. People who seemed healthy, people who seemed sick, young people, old people, all these people were simply dying. In was unexplainable how you could have a simple conversation with some one on one day, and then the next, they’re gone. Taken into death’s cold embrace.
Christiana prayed ferverently to G-d every night to stop these deaths, to stop the weather. She made promises to stop her hate, and to love openly and without judgment, all just to spare them this suffering. She simply couldn’t stand to lose another friend. She had already lost so many.
After weeks of prayer and begging, Christiana once again found herself on a beach towel next to Raffaele watching a sunset. They sat in silence once again, but this time it was not a peaceful one but rather an apprehensive one, where they were both waiting for the other shoe to drop. The shadows had only continued to loom closer and more threatening then ever.
“I’m done,” whispered Christiana.
Raffaele turned to look at the girl resting on his shoulder, “What do you mean?” He asked, softly nudging her in their familiar way.
“I’m done, I’m done with my family, my mother’s never stopping ramblings, my father’s silence and my stupid brother’s and sister’s messes that I always clean up. I’m done with it. My entire life, no more, I don’t want it and I’m done with it.” She whispered fiercely, closing her eyes at the conviction of her words. “I’m done with my religion, my faith, it’s a joke. G-d’s abandoned us, if he was ever here in the first place. I mean, how could he let all this happen? How could he let people die like this?” Christiana started sobbing into her friend’s shoulder as she wrapped her arms tightly around him. Raffaele returned the gesture by wrapping his own strong arms around her fragile frame. He rocked her back and forth as her sobs racked her entire body.
“H-h-how coul-d he ab-b-bandom us!” She sobbed out. Too many of her friends and acquaintances had been taken for her to feel anything less then abandonment.
Raffaele just squeezed harder and placed another kiss on her head, “Shh, hush mia principessa, hush now. He hasn’t abandoned us. Maybe he’s just biding his time. G-d is like the weather, weren’t you just telling me about the weather? It’s unfathomable, unforeseeable? Si? Hush, hush mi amore.”
Christiana took her head from off his shoulders to look at his face. Her eyes were red and swollen and the bit of make-up she wore streaked her cheeks as a few remaining tears ran doen her face. Raffaele brought a hand up to cradle her face and he used his thumb to wipe away the tears. He gave her a small smile, which was really more like a quirk of his lips, before leaning down to kiss her chastely on the lips. The long since forgotten feeling of flying once again leaped in Christiana.
When he pulled back, she kept her eyes trained on his before giving her own smile, her eyes still holding their sadness. “Si, si, like the weather.” She said before curling up into his chest to watch the last remaining beams of light echo across the sea as the few tendrils of the memory of flying latched onto her heart.
The next evening when she went to the beach, Raffaele wasn’t there. It had happened before, where he had either had to work late, or his mother unexpectedly wanted him home early. There were many reasons why he wouldn’t be there waiting for her, so Christiana just went home, to continue on through the daily motions of living.
A few days went by this way, it really wasn’t anything new. Out of the 4 years that they had known each other, there had always been weeks where one or both of them couldn’t make it to the beach. Things would just come up, it was always understandable. Christiana refused to believe that it might be anything else, she wouldn’t even let the thought within her mind.
She continued on this way until one morning, which was the same as all the other mornings, the same breakfast, the same family, no differences what so ever, her dad once again spoke.
“Hurm,” he grunted out, “Another few deaths, santé cielo, when will they stop?” He said flipping to the next page.
“Who’s it this time?” Piped Vincente. He always wanted to know the names of who had died, both he and Marco were morbid bastards for 9 year olds.
Their father just looked at them from over his glasses before turning the page back, “Let’s see, hmmm, there’s a Stefano Leghissa, a Roberto Mazzola, Carolina Vatta, oh, no, the Rossi’s from down the street, Raffaele Cavicchi and Elisa Pancalli and her children, that’s all for today, but I’m sure there will be more for you boys tomorrow.” Christiana’s father had the decency to at least look not amused by the twins’ lack of regard for the recently deceased.
Meanwhile Christiana had ceased to breath. The feeling of drowning rushed over her and dragged down. It wasn’t possible, there had to be another Raffaele Cavicchi. It couldn’t be hers, not the one she loved. No, she wouldn’t let it be him. He was her constant, he was her change, he was her window into a world that she would never be apart of because she was never going be free from her own life. She was going to live the same day over and over again until she herself was old and wrinkled and Raffaele was going to be there waiting on the beach. That’s how it worked. He couldn’t be gone, he couldn’t be dead. That was not how things were. No where in any of the plans and schedules that Christiana had made did it say that he was allowed to be gone, nowhere!
She couldn’t stand to be sitting at that table anymore, she couldn’t, not when her whole world just flipped upside down. Her best friend was dead. So Christiana, deaf to the inquiries of her family simply stood up and walked up to her attic and shoved all her clothing and belongings into two bags and grabbed her wallet and left. She didn’t say a word, she just left.
She took a quick detour to Raffaele’s house, the black curtains and the sounds of sobbing confirmed everything she feared and had prayed wouldn’t happen. She dropped her bags on the road before stepping up onto the doorstep. She reached up to undo the clasp of her crucifix and she gently hung it on the door handle. She had no more use of it. Christiana was finally living up to that statement she had made those few days ago. She was done.
The feeling of drowning was gone. Instead it was replaced with the feeling of emptiness. There was nothing here for her anymore, she was done. So Christiana hitch hiked to the nearest international airport and bought the first non-stop ticket she could.
Tokyo, Japan would be a change.
