A Christmas Tale

“He was filled with sudden joy. It wasn't yet clear to him what drove him to accomplish that feat, but he had nonetheless derived some meaning from it. He had faced is fear. Yet, at the beginning of every crossing he let go of the ballast in his soul, so that the wire became a path towards freedom.” A few weeks before Christmas the man, who used to be an extremely talented tightrope walker, decides to attempt one more walk on a wire stretched between a library's balcony and an abandoned church's bell tower. He's 67 years old, his body is a bit rusty but still extraordinarily sprightly. So, one cold morning at dawn... Here's Fiaba di Natale by Simona Baldelli, Sellerio, or, “the amazing journey of the Man in Mid-air”, a simple and only slightly sad story. During the crossing, as below him the whole town comes to a halt, the man engages with a police officer and a firefighter, who try to persuade him to get off the wire, as well as a priest, his doctor and, finally, his daughter. And there, between the wire and a rescue crane, their relationship resumes, with the memory of a shattered family and the future glimpsed in his young grandson, whom he had never met until then. Memories: “‘What are the stars?’ the little girl had asked him. ‘Dreams’ he had replied. ‘And we are in great need of them, because it's from dreams that everything is born.’” This is the message of the story: don't get lost in fear and keep on dreaming.

Fiaba di Natale (A Christmas Tale)
Simona Baldelli
Sellerio, 2020