A Year Of Sex Fantasy Tales. Juan Salanova

so that the sun would not wither its beauty and would devalue the gift so hard to win for her.

      He came back excited about his story with a happy ending, but it couldn't be. A bomb on the ground destroyed his illusion, blowing up the camel, the pitcher and the flower. Assaulted by a guerrilla group, in a few minutes the catastrophe flooded the desert and silence saw the lamentations through the smoke. Camel drivers killed, camels and cargo stolen. When the police arrived, they could only count the dead. Carlos wasn't there. His track was gone.

      Two years later, Aphrodite was among her usual group of French tourists, telling them the history of her country while accompanying them on the monumental circuit of Asmara. It was a very hot day, so at noon they stopped at an open-air bar under a plastic roof that provided shade and partially mitigated the heat. On national television, the news was on. A flashing Latest News sign appeared on the screen, and then a hooded man chained a bearded white prisoner to the camera. It was Carlos.

      - Read - said the hooded man urgently.

      Carlos obeyed immediately.

      - The African Revolutionary Movement, in the face of France's imperialist attack on our Muslim brothers and sisters, and after refusing to withdraw its crusaders from the Middle East despite successive threats that such an expansionist policy would cause the suffering of its population, and refusing to negotiate the release of its people by an exchange of prisoners, has tried and sentenced to death the French citizen Carlos, born in La Ciotat, as a representative of the attacking power. May Allah take him to His bosom.

      A tense silence followed the statement. The hooded man put a curved knife in front of the camera and grabbed the hostage by the hair.

      - Aphrodite, I love you! - was heard rumbling before the desperate gaze of the guide, expanding the image in a few hours to the whole world.

      The blood spurted out under a head where only the image of Aphrodite bathed in purifying dragon blood, attached to his own, remained momentarily.

      The following week, the front page theme of the beheading, present in all media, provoked a national crowd in the cemetery of La Ciotat. The heartbroken mother, overwhelmed by the media event, accompanied by Aphrodite in all black, could do little more than insistently repeat:

      - Thank you, thank you very much.

      And life continued on the planet, as the contradictions of an unjust system made standard are repeated and even extended.

      TALE OF THE MOTHER OF THE 7 DWARFS

      Sant’Alfio, Sicily (Italy)

      DECEMBER 1995

      It all started on Black Friday. Alessia and her husband, Massimo, went down to the shopping centre near Catania, where the announcement of the pre-Christmas sales deeply attired the compulsive cravings of her husband, hardly contained after a period of summer tourist boom. In their village, there were more and more people who sooner or later would ascend Etna from their village, after having a soda or a cup of coffee, buying the appetizing sweets that the husband made and were sold by Alessia with her usual spontaneity and joy.

      After taking one of the trolley and, in imitation of so many other consumers, pushing or rather leaning on it, they entered the overheated hall. Before entering the larger stores, several people offered accessories at stalls along the corridors, hoping to take a few crumbs of the wallets filled already for a short time in the pockets of the mass arrivals of mountain people that Friday.

      Alessia was particularly impressed by a mushroom stand. They were not the typical seasonal mushrooms that attracted Sicilians, more and more gourmets, more and more eager to try new flavours. It was a botanical stand, an extension of the usual florist's shop, perhaps the idea of the florist after having made a big profit in All Saints' Day. In there different types of mushrooms with pleasant colours were offered, as if they were flowers, the flowers of the forest in autumn, each with explanatory info. Although Massimo didn't seem to pay any attention, the usual outing for the marriage meant that everything had to be done together, so if one stopped, the partner had to also stop and wait until the object was left or bought, in order to continue together to the next point of interest, because that was a couple who get along fine. In that place, a dwarf with oriental features passionately explained the virtues of each specimen, as if it were a treasure.

      - Black truffle and white truffle / aroma for the throat.

      Alessia sniffed like a dog, trying to catch something of the scent of that exquisite mushroom.

      - Russula white foot, purple foot / the first is good, the second is bad.

      People smiled at the occurrences of the simple couplets that the charlatan shaman hawked.

      - Amanita caesarean, amanita muscaria / one delicious, the other devilish....

      - Look, Massimo. That's the dwarf mushroom. How pretty! It sounds like a fairy tale.

      - But I don't think it's edible, is it?

      - I'm going to ask. Excuse me, excuse me! Can that red and white mushroom be eaten?

      - This one? The amanita muscaria?

      - The one with dwarfs in fairy tales.

      - It has been consumed for thousands of years. It has been the inspiration for religions and literature. You can travel and dream with it. It's the mushroom of the gods.

      - It's poisonous, isn't it?

      - It is not food for the stomach, but it is for the mind.

      - And can be found somewhere?

      - In the pine forests under the volcano.

      - What's the matter, Alessia? You're not going to go and pick non-edible mushrooms, are you? - her husband scolded her.

      - Wait, Massimo. It's funny, really.

      - No. Let's go now. This is not for us.

      As they moved away, Alessia heard the salesman say something about a well-known tree, the oldest chestnut tree in the world.

      - The Chestnut of the 100 Horses? It is close to our village - she said to herself, given her husband's scant attention, more concerned about the gifts she wanted to buy for the family.

      - Let's see what gifts we buy, which today are discounted.

      - And extra food for these days too?

      - No, it's too soon. We have our refrigerator jammed up.