3:10 to Yuma, a Train to Southern Italy against the virus

Fuga dal nord
Drawing by Gabriele Artusio

Thousands and miles fleeing the north. Suddenly, in one night. The bundle on the shoulder. Money? doesn’t matter. Hen planes are bombing, you can’t stay waiting or think about. Fear-action: just one breath, no gap in between. An immediate cause-and-effect relationship, not even a minimum of time for a minimum evaluation. And the whole of them suddenly barricaded on trains, buses, cars, motorbikes, or even riding on donkeys.

Victuals? Clothing? It’s not a holiday matter, but an unexpected escape from a great looming danger. What? You risk of being forced to cohabit with a bad housemate. It does its best to multiply at the expense of the human being, its victim to whom he symbiotically attaches itself. Poor thing! It struggles for survival, otherwise it dies. Human being is its mere tool, its support, its blessing. And you, human being who involuntary guests it, do not expect gratitude. It is not convenient to you.

This would cause a greater dialogue with it, a longer cohabitation. But time isn’t useful to you. If you don’t get rid of it very soon, you won’t get rid of it anymore. And it survives you, wherever you go, after. Unless the after damages it. Actually, its nature is not compatible with the spiritual dimension. So, after a few seconds of disturbance being in semi-consciousness, you will have won it, whether you go to hell or to heaven.

Listen why. If you take it with you to heaven, it will surely regret for having attached itself to you, because it does not like spirituality, especially if absolute. If it follows you to hell, it will tackle two inconveniences. The first is that it feels transplanted into demonic atmospheres which nevertheless belong to the otherworld, while the land-earth is its own habitat. The second inconvenience is that it, this stranger, would overheat until death. And there is a great retaliation: it closes with “bios”, the life and you start a life of hell which, in addition, is an eternal one.

And may be, however things go, this invisible dwarf asshole, not only does not apologize for being intrusive or better invasive, but also results to be bully and even feels like a demigod. That’s why suddenly, and no sooner said than done, one reaches the station to take the first train, almost everywhere it goes, as long as not to the north. Think of it! There is also a race between two fears. In fact, if I go on staying here (in the north), I’ll get it; but, listen: will this fear be greater than that of the looming contagion you can catch among the crowd in the train? As if to say: the siren has exploded and the bombs are coming: do I flee to where there is no bombing or do I look for some shelter where I am?

But perhaps it won’t be all my fault! I ask you and myself: why, so suddenly, I, among so many thousands of people, fled as if there were a tsunami? Did I have a bad dream, so that I rushed to the street? Someone please help me understand, now that the terror has decreased, what occurred to me? What made me lose my reason, until avoiding to consider that departure would have been a danger for people I would meet, let alone my own relatives? And then why – as I wondered – no one blocked me and forced me to quarantine? Is it really all my fault?