“No one truly exists in the real world because no one knows all that he is to other human beings, all that they say behind his back, and all the foolishness which the future will bring him”
(Delmore Schwartz)

The greengrocer girl hands me the crate of carrots, and I give in and say, they're for the horse. The girl says, a lucky horse and I cave in even more, saying, the horse lives better than we do, that's for sure. I immediately regret betraying my mother so easily but as long as I have to deal with them I need to be approved or accepted by these people, so different from me. We smile, and her smile says 'your mother is crazy, she looks crazy, with those absurd clothes, her crazy talk, I'd rather eat her horse or let him starve to death than feed him with so many carrots everyday. It's a shame to pay so much attention to animals. You weird people'.

(In picture: set of instructions. Following: details of the 'stray cats feeding' section)

I still need to know where the pharmacy Abate is. The three women present, all equally short, with dark eyes, short hairs, piercing gaze and mocking faint smile, fail to give me a decent explanation of where the pharmacy is located. One start her explanation, 'just go back the road you came from and turn left', 'you do the circle around the village', says the second as the other interrupts, 'you just go straight this way and turn right'. Finally a sixty or so old man who's idling in and out of the greengrocer's shop steps into the debate and settle: 'Abate Pharmacy? I'll bring him there. So he gives me a lift home'. He didn't even ask me, but it's fine because I just want to go.

I warn him the car is a mess, just as my mother keeps it. He says OK but I know he'll regret it. As we get into the car he has to fight with empty bottles, dried newspaper sheets tore to pieces, the yellow case of the winter chains that tumbles against his feet every time the little Panda accelerates, different layers of dried mud scattered around the place, seats included. The overloaded ashtray spurts grey and white particles flitting between our legs. Dogs share the car, I explain to him. He wouldn't appreciate if I start blaming my mother, even though I am quite willing to. He repeats three times, no problem.

As we arrive to the pharmacy, it becomes clear how much easy is to find the place and how near it is. The whole trip lasts not more than two minutes. This leaves me with the renewed amazement for the detachment from rational life those women have, and for the tedious, elaborated solutions their men find to simple problems, just to look busy as women do all the real work.
As I say goodbye to the old man he stops a second in the middle of the road and says, the greengrocer girl, she's my daughter. She's a good girl. I nod. In my paranoia I figure he's scheming I should marry her.

The round face of the guy pharmacist scans mine. His eyes say he likes me in a filthy unconfessed or repressed way, conveing whichever is his desire in the gloomy light of the store as he hands me the prescription. I thank and leave without making the mistake of glancing at him again.

On the road across the fields of Olives, in the countryside marked with trulli and modern sharp cement houses, I have to stop by an abandoned lot to feed a bunch of stray cats. As I step out of the car, they flock meowing and rubbing themselves against the edges of the old stony low walls. I have precise instructions about where to drop the food into different old dishes for different cats. This is also on the drawings my mother did as instructions.

At the old oil mill the dogs rush barking and howling against the fence to cheer my approaching smell and figure. My perceptions are blanked by a weight of complacent, absurd lack of criticism as I mentally go through the instructions regarding the getting back home. One bone-shaped biscuit for any of the dogs, in a precise hierarchical order. Two biscuits to the big one. The old Marcel barks fiercely and runs across my legs. He knows he comes first.