Read The hands of Leo Page 11


  "To the beard I will think it tomorrow" I told me.

  In short, after an oretta of struggles with water, soap, towels and various furnishings, I looked me at the mirror. I was a true disgust, but better of so I would never have succeeded in doing. It stayed only now me to dress me, then I would have been ready to face my first true man day, but I kept on being very worried because to learn everything was very more difficulty than I would ever be waited me, and I feared that if I/you had continued so you/they would have confined soon me in some insane asylum. Could go around at all to tell that I was the reincarnation of a dog! Stefania could be a good help, but I had the clean feeling to be me her almost entirely played. Still a pair of strangeness and he would be hidden in house until you/they had not brought away me with the shirt of strength. While I was reflecting on the to do himself/herself/themselves became me account that my stomach he was complaining of ugly for the hunger. I opened the refrigerator and all the counters of the dispensation but I found solo I void, the nothing total! Or there was not better anything to be able to grab, - as I liked it, now, that word - and to put in mouth, to chew and to swallow. Unfortunately I had always had someone who handled my feeding, so I was completely ignorant in subject of kitchen. For the truth there was some manufactured stuff, but I didn't know her/it and I was not able of to work her/it. Besides, not knowing how to read, I was not able to decipher the instructions. Besides that furbettos of Italo, always have some ready excuse with Stefania, had stopped shopping from a piece! I didn't have choice, if I wanted to survive I had to find the way of getting me of the food.

  Chapter 49. The first exit

  . however it came me to mind that for anything they served me that colored leaflets - it seemed me that Giotto had called him money - that the human ones used for doing everything. They took the gasoline and they gave some colored leaflets, they took the bus and they had to give the colored leaflets to the inspector, that it gave him of it one everything white in change, very nice for the truth. They parked the auto and they put the leaflets in a speaking macchinetta, to enter the bath of the park, served even the leaflets or that shiny and hard diskettes. I knew that the most greater part of the human ones if they get them working, and Italo had been without job for a piece. I wished me that had not ended them all or would have been sold! I rummaged in all the drawers, the counters, the pockets of the suits: nothing! Then I remembered that they often held them in a black and soft container folded up in two. I went to see what was in the jacket of Italo, that I had hung to the clothes-stand, and I finally found him/it. Inside, as I had hoped, there were some that leaflets. The difficulty now came, and that is to go to buy to eat. I didn't have idea of as to do because you/they had never let me enter a shop, in fact on the door of every shop there were some poster with a drawn dog and a red line above. But the spirit of survival often furnishes unexpected resources, I knew that somehow I would have done. Pains still attacked me in a lot of parts of the body and I didn't feel like walking, unfortunately however I didn't have disposition means and even if I/you had had one I would not have known how to drive him/it of it. For scruple I went to give a glance in garage and I found an old bicycle; I thought that probably with that I would have labored less and I would have moved more quickly. I had always believed whether to be in saddle and to move the feet was not so difficult then, above all because they know how to also be him/it his/her children, but to the scene fall I had crossed really little road. I was about to abandon the idea when meeting came me really a child. Also he had a bike, but his was very smaller than mine and it was best, because it had two additional wheels that prevented him from falling. Showing him some colored leaflets was not difficult to convince to do him/it to change. I started to pedal toward the zone of the district where all the shops there were, and passing in front of the house of Stefania I noticed that she was observing me from the window. It had the braccias conserte and you/he/she was shaking the head.

  Chapter 50. The expense

  From more than mezz'ora I was immovable in front of the entry of the supermarket without succeeding in finding the courage to enter, I was there and I looked with envy through the transparent glass door the people that stirred with sure footstep among the shelves. They went agile of passage in passage and they stopped every now and then him in front of the exhibitors, the more ones they chose the objects next to where suspended were some big yellow poster, others they took the things without not even staying himself/herself/themselves to look and they distractedly threw her in the cart. They patiently started then standing in line, even exchanging two chatters, loads as mules finally, went smiling. Suddenly it came me an idea. I had noticed that the human ones involved more or less all in the same way and they had more or less necessity of the same things. For instance, the suits with some beautiful coats of arms or the writings, always the same. They almost all had the tattoo, the earring, the cigarette in mouth. Almost all the women had the mecheses and I enamel him/it to the fingernails, the girls the piercing. Following the reasoning, had to be so also for eating! If I/you had taken all of this that he/she bought another person, I would have been served. As to follow a man was afraid to instigate an ugly reaction, as I saw to enter an elderly lady I put me confident to his/her ribs, you/he/she would have been enough to do what did her. The oldie had almost immediately realized, annoyed you/he/she had taken to race fast from a passage to the other to try to sow me, but I held hard. At the end I patiently put me in line, and when my turn came I gave to the cashier a beautiful po' of colored leaflets. Did they remain of it well few, and did the first man worries start there: I had to find the way of getting others, but as? When I went out of the supermarket, the oldie was firm to attend me in front of the door.

  «It would make me an autograph please?» he/she asked me with a smile that made her sparkle the denture.

  «I Prepre-prepre-pray?»

  «It is deaf perhaps? I have asked her an autograph, it is for my little niece.»

  «Scucusi but nononon ca-caca-cacapisco.»

  «You look that I don't fall there. they macaws on Candid Camera, it is not true? On, self-acknowledged, so much I have recognized her: she is that of the Great Brother» insistette, I looked at her/it perplexed.

  «Doesn't tell me that it is not true» it did her disappointed, more and more lost I squeezed together me in the shoulders.

  «Therefore, if they are not on Candid Camera, she is only an idler that the time to pass goes around to trouble the defenseless oldies!» it said changing expression, it threw out immediately later an umbrella from the purse and it broke him/it to me on the head.

  «So you learn to bring in comparison to the elderly ones» it shouted vexed, then it went.

  When I arrived home, over a big hunger I also had a big headache. I upset on the table the content of the shopping basket and I took the inventory of that that I had purchased. According to the oldie's heels I had bought a lipstick, a flour kilo, a greenish soap, two liters wine, a pair of pantyhoses of those to favor the circulation, a sponge grattaviatutto, a can of oil of seeds, of the pannolonis, an umbrella - you/he/she had evidently premeditated - of the butter and a pair of slippers. I became me account that there was no trace of stuff to eat and I let me fall in armchair despaired. To ask help to Stefania he/she didn't speak, I feared that of there to few I would be dead of hunger. But the desperation often makes to come some strokes of genius, I got up me and courses in garage, opened the small dispensation where Italo held my food and of Puffi and as I hoped I found her/it stracolma of scatolette. I chose five of it or six, then I taken a box of croccantini and I finally reentered in the house. After having fought for some with the can-opener I finally succeeded in having lunch, and everything the scatolettes they were not even bad.

  Chapter 51. My funeral

  That same afternoon they called me so that I went to take back me the body of Leo dog, and when I saw him/it was a true torment! It seemed a big, old, doll of roll ricucita thousand times.
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  "Poor my corpicino" I thought touched when I saw him/it, hardly holding back the tears" you were really perfect."

  "Beautiful, muscular, proportionate. How much raced have done together, how much things. and instead now looks where The ams me, imprisoned in this disgust! I have to put otherwise me the glasses I don't see anything, I don't succeed in speaking, to go by bicycle, and I labor even to open a banal bottle of water. If I/you had known that it was so accursedly everything difficult, I would never have desired to have the hands."

  The veterinarian that had performed the autopsy entrusted me him so that I handled the obsequieses; him to be precise used the word" to undo him of it." In an impetus of nostalgia I had thought about making to embalm him/it to always hold him/it with me, but then I considered us. A myself that it bewared me fixed of an angle of the living room you/he/she would have disturbed me not little. Was the problem: thing to do of it? I was not never sincerely me place the problem of what I would have liked that was my last abode, I had always been some that would have been somebody else to think of us in every case. And I was me instead to have to organize my same funeral and to have to prepare my last wishes besides putting her in practice. And any possibilities it seemed me inadequate. To give the body for the search? Apart that seemed me impossible because there a healthy piece had not remained, only but then to think about the fool that would have done of it had given me the shivers! To cremate he/she didn't speak him/it, and not even to throw him/it in sea because I am never was not liked the sea. If I had him/it buried in the wood there were the wild boars that could dig and to bring him/it to the light to eat him/it to him. The veterinarian had told me that as soon as there was out of town a cemetery for pets, so even if I knew that I would be practically remained without colored leaflets at the end I opted for that. At least I would have been able to bring me some flowers every time that I wanted. Has you/he/she ever happened you to bury yourselves? I suppose of no, I believe that nobody has done him. I have felt to say of famous people that to change life has staged his/her own death and his/her own funeral, or of others that have done only him to see who loved indeed him. Then I am him hidden among the crowd, to feel what people said of them, and after you/they have ended up killing indeed himself/herself/themselves. In every case you/they had to have been of the beautiful funerals, with the priest, the procession and the whole rest, even also with the gang. People that despaired him, for pain or for duty, to someone the applauses were touched even. Steve's funeral, that yes that you/he/she had to have been beautiful, while mine had been really sad: no priest, no good words, only as a dog. I leaned a they put bouquet of flowers on the heap of earth and I devoted me a pair of prayers. I didn't know whether to address to the god of the dogs or to that some men, so I consulted them both. Then I did me a beautiful discourse to the memory, remembering all the heroic deeds that I had completed when I was a dog police officer. I finally started to think with nostalgia about all the things that I would not have been able to do anymore, type to run after cats, to hide a bone, to pee on the wheel of the car of whom was me unpleasant. I cried for a long time.

  Chapter 52. Italo's ghost

  I was returning afoot homeward, absorbed in the evening, and I felt me sad and only as not never. To try to throw me some on the moral one I stayed me to a newspaper kiosk and I bought a specialized magazine for dogs, then I did it covers from the butcher and I made me give the greatest bone that had. When I was still a dog, to be to crunch me a beautiful bone while I was skimming through the magazine looking at the canine ones it put me of good mood, and above all it helped me to reflect. Arrived home I wondered me as I had to do for trying to cook the bone, since I was afraid of the fire. Then it came me to mind that Italo, when it had to heat something, it put him/it in a kind of white plastic box and it turned a handle grip. So definite to try, and after different minutes of fights with that infernal gadget I threw out the bone; had come beautifully! I locked doors and windows and I threw the curtains, to avoid indiscreet looks, sat down then me on the couch with the saliva in mouth. I opened the magazine and I focused me on the photo of a beautiful female of Dalmatian, then I grabbed the bone and I did for bringing me him to the mouth.

  «What you are doing? You will break me all the teeth!» a voice suddenly played again me in the ear while I was being about to bite the bone almost making me come a heart attack.

  Frightened to death I jumped standing on the couch while the bone fell to the ground. I was convinced to be alone, I looked around me more times without succeeding in perceiving anybody. I let me slip on the couch thinking about having had a kind of hallucination.

  «Where you look? I am here, but if you don't lower the blinds you will never see me!» insistette the voice.

  Trembling for the fear gone down by the couch and I went to throw down the shutter, then I made a complete turn on myself to see who cabbage was that you/he/she was had a good time frightening me.

  «Here you can now see me,» it told the voice my shoulders.

  I turned me and I made back a new leap to the with the skin that him accapponava for the terror! I didn't know how could have happened but I was undoubled me, in front of me there was another me that it looked me fixed with the hands on the sides, and from his/her expression it seemed very angry. Not another Leo, another Italo! On the first ones I thought that it was my conscience, come to reproach me because I had appropriated some body of Italo.

  «Compliment, are behaved well indeed you! I have picked up you from the road, I have saved you the life, I have taken care of you and I have given you a family. And you as thanks you have ruined my relationship with Stefania, you have destroyed me half house, and as if this was not enough for the first occasion you have taken possession of my body!» it blamed me.

  «Mama-mama you mas-s-s-are for-prop-propriotu?»

  «And who otherwise?»

  I remained to look him/it incredulous for different minutes, while he kept on fixing me frowning.

  «You have frightened me to death» I said after some instant, as soon as I had started over normally breathing. Because of that discharge of adrenaline I suddenly had also stopped stammering.

  «So much to clarify» I continued after having thrown a pair of respironis «I am not me that have stolen you the body; are you that have destroyed mine, and who knows because I have found here inside! And believe me, have now seen how works, was the last thing that would have liked! If only you that evening I/you had driven with greater prudence. and then where my goodness you were you outcast? Days have passed, from the accident!»

  Chapter 53. The heaven of the dogs

  «Where I was me outcast? For your guilt was ended in a stramaledetto heaven of the dogs! I saw that stuff, for a little I/you/they are not gone out crazy of it. On a great green lawn there are trees, bushes and bushes of all the kinds, put on purpose there for peeing. More before there is a white and glimmering beach, where for the whole day badminton on one side to the other of the sky batons and balls by to run after. The ground is soft, it is enough to give a zampata to find us a gigantic bone. Don't speak of the food; all it takes is thinking" I am hungry" and to lift the head to open mouth. Rains of croccantini of every form, measure and taste fall you in wish mouth. Don't starve I have had to eat to the chicken and carrots of it, to the cereals, to the milk, and then I don't even know him/it me as!»

  Did you stop for taking back breath, still shocked, while to me they shone the eyes; who if you/he/she would ever be imagined him/it that a place attended me as that?

  «And you/he/she is not ended here» taken back «there is then the department of the real fun. Another lawn where of everything some is: lizards, toads and country topini to be run after and to catch. And then, the cats! Million of cats! New of mint, of every ransom sex and color, so weak to seem half corpses. They look you as to say": From the, run after me. from the, on, bite me. On, before, give me a beautiful bite! Please, from the, bite me. I/you/they are affixed here for making to bite
me from you"!»

  «And you that you have done?»

  «Taken by the anger, one have bite seriously him.»

  «And as it was?»

  «A disgust, a true disgust! I have kept on spitting hair for mezz'ora.»

  «And then thing has happened?» I asked anxious, making I count me than I/you had been fortunate. Someone was taken intrigues her/it to make a jump in the aldilà of the dogs to my place, had seen what there was and now was telling me him for thread and for sign!

  «I/you/they are run away from there racing, with the closed eyes for the desperation. When I have reopened them I have found on a long avenue planted with trees with so many small cottages in wood each of which it had before a beautiful lawn to the English. On every house there was a nameplate with on writing a name of dog, so I have found yours. There before they passed about ten dairymen, mail carriers, chiccai, knife sharpener, ombrellai, all rigorously in bicycle. Also those were all new ones of mint, they were for making to be pursued there, they went plain he/she waits for for making to be snapped at to the ankles!»