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BLUE AND THE HEARTLESS LITTLE GIRL

BLAKE B.

Illustrations by Andrea Berlinghieri

Translated by: Giada Di Gioia

Publisher: Tektime

To my grandmother

Bernardina Bersia.

The original B.B.

The transparent little girl was calmly floating next to Blue, keeping up with him, following his pace, a little to the right, a little to the left, a little running, a little slowly. The scents were the guide that made them move. A berry, an acorn, a pinecone, a fern. The little forest was full and saturated with appealing perfumes and they were investigating them all. Barks, branches, leaves, mushroom, even fireflies; and in order to follow them, sometimes, the little girl was going through Blue, provoking a shiver that made his back hair stand up. She laughed, and Blue didn’t complain. She was a ghost and he was a boar. The most unlikely couple in the wood. However. For years they have been walking the green and brown paths, tight in the night blue, like they were one only creature, even if only one of them was alive while the other was more like a memory. They met, even if it would be better to say bumped into each other a lot of time before, when she was an entity without a place and he was the boss of the place. She was alone, transparent, and helpless, and he was the typical bully, a bit rude and a bit obtuse who, anyway, did not allow any intrusion in his territory, nor, least of all, in his everyday life. So, when he intercepted her for the first time, he rushed in a hostile and unfriendly run against the presence that he felt as an intruder, but his fury dissolved in a fog bank and Blue stood still, breathing the wood. Grunted. Blew air, grudge, and mud. Then he pulled himself together, he looked around sneaky, masked the awkwardness, and pretended to smell the ground. The

origin of the scent that provoked his disapproval resembled the human one, and this was the reason why he rushed against it but, after all, there was anything human between the trees and the ground, only a tepid steam that was tickling his senses, confusing them. Blue felt disoriented, just like that night when the fear was smelling so much that condensed into reality, and he wasn’t capable of distinguish the threshold of the nightmare. Therefore, he dropped himself to the ground, defeated and shivering, staring doubtful into the darkness and, finally, ducked in the leaves, pushing the snout between his paws. And it was in that very moment that he distinguished her, or maybe it would be better to say heard her, because it was the hearing to reach him before the sight. ‘Are you afraid?’ Silence ‘Me too.’ Still silence. ‘Shouldn’t you be stronger?’ Hostile silence. ‘You’re goofy’ Huff. ‘I got it. You don’t understand me.’ Picking up ears. ‘Oh, did you hear me then?’ Lowering the ears. ‘Don’t be sneaky, I saw you, you know?’ Rolling eyes. And then...

Sbam! The fog he followed was made of soft and thin brown hair, tiny hands and big green eyes that

overflew skin as pale as a cloud. What was before his eyes, basically, was a cotton ball. Like a dandelion that still needs to be spread. A tangle of beauty, a skein of humanity. If the abstract could have been concrete, it would have been her. Blue stood on his feet and, against the numbers, approached her boldly.

He smelled her consistency that was made of air, wind, cold, ice. She was a crystal of compelling features and Blue was immediately impressed with that one detail that disturbed all that candour. In the middle of the little girl’s chest, where the heart is placed, there was a hole instead. A hole as big as a chestnut husk through which air blew, little leaves passed through, or whatever the wind was carrying away. Blue tilted his head, before to the right, then to the left, then again to the right, and the little girl burst out laughing.

‘It’s my heart hole’, she explained to dissolve the confusion in the boar eyes as if saying so, everything would have been clearer. He answered grunting and moved away a few steps but the little girl, in a blow, was still near him, ‘You have something different too, by the way.’

Blue sat patient and curious, letting her speak.

‘You have blue eyes, do you know that?’ He nodded. Of course, he knew.

‘I have never seen a boar with blue eyes before. Can you see it? We are both, you know, special. Moreover, you seem to be the only one who can understand me, the other animals run away as soon as they feel my presence. I think we should really stay together.’

Blue remained silent for a few seconds, delightfully bewildered by that presence and by that little voice, and let a good minute pass by before he answered, which thing she perceived as indecisiveness or

uncertainty. Her voice became a whisper like she was about to tell him a secret.

‘I don’t even know what my name is. Don’t leave me alone. I don’t want to. I don’t like it.’ Blue, who didn’t mean to pull her away, lighten up his eyes and stood up on his paws, charged with responsibilities, and finally spoke.

‘I’ll call you Cotton Ball.’

He didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but the most beautiful smile he had ever seen suggested him that it was certainly the right thing to do; he didn’t exactly get what she was neither, by the way, she was neither part of his world and neither of the other, and he decided to take a risk. Or maybe to surrender?

He would have accepted her.

And from that moment on, they spent together every millisecond of an extraordinary existence.

Just like that instant when the first snow of December started to fall anywhere covering everything with soft white and, as Cotton Ball always used to say, the wood became made of milk and cream.

Delicious! Said her as soon as she tasted a leaf, and Blue licked a twig and answered right back It’s just the right amount of freshness. The perfect ice-cream!

Than they sniggered a bit and they continued their stroll. So that now, between white trees and a cobalt blue night, they hanged around tasting snowflakes, flowers, and some sips of the river that slowly started to sparkle. Blue’s fur was shining too, under the reflections of the moonlight that, in that night, seemed to fill the whole sky. Cotton Ball stood enchanted with her nose in the air and Blue went to sit down next to

her. The riverbank was already coated with a soft carpet of snow and Blue settled down properly, letting himself slightly sink in the snow.

‘Very comfortable’ added him, satisfied.

‘Do you know what do I like about this night, Blue?’

‘What?’

‘Everything.’

The boar felt a little less like a boar and got even more closer in order to see if he could steal her some cuddles that, however, followed soon.

Blue was always surprised by that tiny creature who, despite being heartless, was capable of pure and unconditional love. The heart she lost was simply physical and material and she herself became her heart.

Beating and precious, she projected splendour.

He stole a glance at the hole that pierced her chest: in that moment inside of it were swirling snowflakes which, calmly and with a bit of laziness, came out in spiral pattern in the atmosphere.

It seemed like magic.

He sighed.

There was not a single day in which Blue didn’t remember Cotton Ball’s tale about the tragic event that provoked that massive hole. She explained him just like it was the most natural thing in the world that her dad shot her. Hey, accidentally! Added her and a sort of smile pursed her little face. They went out for last Christmas great hunting trip and her dad said that they were looking for the most eligible trophy of the wood. The bitterness that he felt in realizing that the prize was actually him, the blue eyes boar, stood stick to his heart, to his thoughts, to everything. It was hard to chase it away, it reminded him of the mug that sticks to the fur when the rain is pouring from days.

And so, when the shots were fired by the rifle, they sneaked between the peacefulness of the trees,

terrorizing the wood, and one of the ammunitions rebounded on a rock hitting Cotton Ball’s chest straight away. All she remembered was the red snow.

Blue had a look at the water and then at the little girl’s face.

‘I am so lucky that I met you. Even if it’s a paradox.’

‘We are lucky’, Cotton Ball corrected him and then added ‘What shall we do to keep it always like now?’

‘Exactly what we are doing.’

‘You know what I mean.’ And, for a moment, on her pale face appeared a swift pouty expression which

Blue immediately chased away laying his big head on her lap.

‘There’s no room for sad thoughts tonight, it’s made of milk and cream, don’t you remember?’

Cotton Ball nodded and tried to chase away the thought that was ailing her more and more: Blue was an animal and as such earthbound and, most of all, mortal.

How long was he going remain by her side still?

Not to mention that he was the most wanted animal in the wood, the hunters were not giving him a rest, and Christmas was getting nearer and nearer. And what would have become of her?

Would she have continued to wander alone as always without him? She puffed, then she pushed slightly her head inside her shoulders as to shelter herself from bad things.

‘Ugh.’

‘I am not going to abandon you that fast.’

‘I know. But it might happen.’

‘Sooner or later. In any case, it would be fair, we are born to die.’

‘Luckily it had to be a funny night.’

They burst out laughing. Good resolutions must be respected.

Blue suddenly stood up and ran around Cotton Ball, then he lied down and stuck his snout in the snow, picked up a friable little white mountain with his nose and stiffly blew it on the little girl’s face. She laughed hard waving her hands in the air and they continued playing that way in that white cloud for several minutes.

Finally, exhausted but happy, they left the riverbanks and walked towards the wood, the sun was about to rise soon, and Blue started to yawn.

When they reached the old oak tree that was waiting for them like that was all it has been doing in the past two hundred years, the sky had lowered a shade and now it was surrounding them in cornflower blue.

Blue gave himself a shrug to take off the snowflakes that were making his fur wet and was about to enter his den inside the oak tree.

‘Wait! One last thing, Blue!’

‘What? I am a little tired.’

‘The last one! I promise! Come on, come on, come on!’

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘No’ she laughed in her sleeve, ‘but you’re going to like it. Look!’

Cotton Ball came close to the cortex of the old oak tree and started to blow from her lips a wind so freezing that the insects ran away, the night birds returned earlier to their nests, and Blue shivered. He lifted one paw at a time to move enough to produce some warmth while he tried to peek whatever Cotton Ball was

up to, but she, with her back turned, was so busy in lowing all her ice against the majestic tree trunk.

It seemed like she was putting her heart and soul into that and, in fact, when she finished, Blue was speechless.

The truck was now shining ice, and on the trajectory and the height of Cotton Ball’s heart, there were two letters carved deep in the wood. Her glacial steam dug them, making them indelible like a mark.

b + B.

Simplicity doesn’t need words.

‘Did you see it? Do you like it? Do you know that they’re our initials? I am the small one, obviously.’

Blue answered to the smile he loved so much and he knew so well but this time his eyes were covered by a slight sheen of tears. Now he saw numerous b.

‘It’s really amazing and I also know why you did it.’

‘You know, of course but tell me anyway.’

Blue moved his eyelashes down and up and, despise the two big tears that frozen before landing to the ground, he finally got his sight back.

‘On this truck, on this cortex, on this oak tree, in the periwinkle dawn, we’ll be together forever.’