ABYSS FEAR

Tempo di lettura: 3 minuti

When I was a child, I was afraid of deep water. I used to swim on the shoreline, where I would wait for the waves to come and go, leaving me safe there, under the watchful gaze of my parents.

It was only with them that I ventured a little further, both my small hands clasped between theirs. Squeezed until they hurt.

As I grew up I learnt to swim, but for years I could not stay still and keep myself afloat, in the sea. I was scared of that abyss below me, dark and full of life, imagining sharks and sea monsters just waiting to gnaw at my legs. It was useless to rehearse in the pool, where I could clearly see to the bottom.

The sea kept moving, deciding where to bring me. I was afraid of being carried away, far away.

Then I started playing with the waves, the high ones. And one day I found myself transported to a spot where the water was too high, and the waves were pushing my head underwater. It was just for a while: my father, who was watching me from the beach, jumped into the water and carried me ashore. I was playing, during the day, happy. I was in danger for a moment, and I am still here, because I was safe.

I have been able to learn, over time, throughout my life, not to be afraid in some moments, to accept it in others. To look for a hand to hold on to, to get into the water to relax. To experience the sea as a source of life, and that abyss as an opportunity for discovery.

The migrant tragedies, announced and then ignored, brought me back to the bottom of that abyss, to which men and women entrusted the hope of salvation for themselves and a future for their children. The vast open sea, at night, pitch-black, so turbulent as to confuse the mind and immobilise bodies already shivering from the cold. The hands of the sons and daughters clutching those of their parents with such force that they leave you breathless.

I’m just thinking about me, terrified just to feel the water at my knees. About my mother, ready with her towel and snack under the beach umbrella. About my father, who holds my hands in the water and says ‘come on, now pull up your legs and shake your feet, I’ve got you’.

I think of how many times those mothers and fathers will have whispered to their children ‘don’t worry, I’ve got you’, while masking the fear of not being able to do it.

Today I am afraid, so afraid, of the abyss: of that abyss as black as pitch, as nauseating as the putrid propaganda of State men and women, who watch from their high seats the bodies of creatures, guilty of wanting to survive, lying on the beaches

I would like to see State men and women knelt down at the feet of those bodies, holding their heads between their hands, desperate for being too late. But they calculated the delay. And I am afraid. Then the fear will pass, and it will only be hate, no other way.

Here I am writing, and right now a new life is being born. I definitely wish him a better world, but first of all the ability to fight for it.