Section Twenty
Things have hotted up even more. I just had to get away. People - and I use that term loosely - have been to see me. I don't have much time to speak at the moment but I've got a little money and I can just last out. I've got supplies. I'm OK. I'm clean. Let's hope I'm alright here. Let's hope I don't attract too much attention. Let's hope I wasn't seen. Though, God knows, this place ought to be secure enough. It was a prison island, after all.
Ah, Pròcida, Pròcida, island of thieves, Australia of the Mediterranean. This charming little pearl of the Bay of Naples has an interesting history. When I get the chance, I'll update the guidebook.
I spend my time strolling around among the pastel-painted houses. I am quite disposed to a bucolic lifestyle. I'm starting to relax, to free-up. Yesterday, I went for a swim, to wash the stench of pursuit from me. Then last night, I dreamt I swam around the entire island.
She stepped into the shower. She remembered not to pull the alarm string thinking it was a light-pull, fiddled - eventually successfully - with the shower fittings and had a long, long relaxing shower. "Gonna wash that man right out of my ears and catch him up some day." She returned to the room. Wet. Naked. Cold marble to the feet. Ears still singing a little. Took a towel. Wrapped her hair in a turban.
She put everything away in the rucksack apart from her map and guidebook and the virgin moneybelt, placed a towel on the bed and lay down, using the rucksack as a pillow, gazing out to sea, snug in her own atomised environment of water, her own little sea that was quickly evaporating under the oppression of the heat.
-Well, what to do now, you little reckless seeker after the grail? -Drawn a semi-blank here. -Don't think I'm going to bump into you by accident. -And I don't think I'm going to lock onto you by process of osmosis, either. -So what next, you clueless pilgrim? -How best to kill time? -Play the tourist until the old girl gets her memory jogged? -Where to? -What's near? -What was that place I passed? She opened the map, and retraced her journey to the oasis, shown suitably green on the map. -Now, then, where are we? -Villa Pignatelli? -No, it's not that. -It's HERE. -A pounce of a finger. -Oh right, an aquarium, hey? She opened the guidebook. -So what do you have to say about this?
This is one of my favourite places. It is a cool, restful annex to the Bay of Naples, from where all the specimens come.
It was founded in the middle of the last century by the German naturalist, Anton Dohrn.
Go there, but when you do, you may wish to bear in mind that it was not always that peaceful, at least as far as the inmates are concerned. During the war, a lot of them were essential components of some fairly exotic pasta dishes.
Ah, Pròcida, Pròcida, island of thieves, Australia of the Mediterranean. This charming little pearl of the Bay of Naples has an interesting history. When I get the chance, I'll update the guidebook.
I spend my time strolling around among the pastel-painted houses. I am quite disposed to a bucolic lifestyle. I'm starting to relax, to free-up. Yesterday, I went for a swim, to wash the stench of pursuit from me. Then last night, I dreamt I swam around the entire island.
She stepped into the shower. She remembered not to pull the alarm string thinking it was a light-pull, fiddled - eventually successfully - with the shower fittings and had a long, long relaxing shower. "Gonna wash that man right out of my ears and catch him up some day." She returned to the room. Wet. Naked. Cold marble to the feet. Ears still singing a little. Took a towel. Wrapped her hair in a turban.
She put everything away in the rucksack apart from her map and guidebook and the virgin moneybelt, placed a towel on the bed and lay down, using the rucksack as a pillow, gazing out to sea, snug in her own atomised environment of water, her own little sea that was quickly evaporating under the oppression of the heat.
-Well, what to do now, you little reckless seeker after the grail? -Drawn a semi-blank here. -Don't think I'm going to bump into you by accident. -And I don't think I'm going to lock onto you by process of osmosis, either. -So what next, you clueless pilgrim? -How best to kill time? -Play the tourist until the old girl gets her memory jogged? -Where to? -What's near? -What was that place I passed? She opened the map, and retraced her journey to the oasis, shown suitably green on the map. -Now, then, where are we? -Villa Pignatelli? -No, it's not that. -It's HERE. -A pounce of a finger. -Oh right, an aquarium, hey? She opened the guidebook. -So what do you have to say about this?
This is one of my favourite places. It is a cool, restful annex to the Bay of Naples, from where all the specimens come.
It was founded in the middle of the last century by the German naturalist, Anton Dohrn.
Go there, but when you do, you may wish to bear in mind that it was not always that peaceful, at least as far as the inmates are concerned. During the war, a lot of them were essential components of some fairly exotic pasta dishes.
© 2006 by Adrian Benson
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