The Bitter Life

After midnight, the last thing you expect is to be stopped on the street by an old man. Both of you are coming back from evenings spent with friends, different and yet very similar at the same time; he has incredibly blue eyes and a deep need for closeness with a stranger, while you carry on your shoulders a wide age gap and the weight of the stories of violence unfolding around you every day. It could even be poetic, if it weren’t for that vein of anxiety that makes it impossible, even in front of an old man sincerely expressing nostalgia for a trust between strangers that disappeared decades ago, to fully relax and try to live a scene from an indie film. After a long time spent among memories, images of reflections on the icy waters of the Arno, and the obsessive attention of a strategist behind every expression and reply - because remember, you may be younger, but you are wearing heels and carrying too much crime news between your ears - you finally manage to say goodbye. You slip into the alleyways and run to lose your tracks, because even though you spoke about it openly, you know you can never truly trust. You were hoping for a scene from La dolce vita and instead find yourself fleeing from the shadow of a television news report. It is 2025.