Crawling up the smooth tunnel someone once carved into this mountain. Afraid of losing my grip, slipping, sliding downwards to the bottom where it all began. Where everything begins.
It is a long story. I will try to make it short. First you need to know about the princess, Sporca Amalia. And you must come with me to the forgotten chapel in the narrow street behind the restaurant La Quinta Stagione del Dolore, where her effigy can be seen. A young girl dressed in marble. Unnoticeable now, almost forgotten, yet still beautiful.
No one remembers that name we had given her any more. To them she is just Amalia of Something, Something, Something. But I called her Sporca Amalia while blood ran from her gurgling mouth. I did things she would never do. Had already done them, but only to the ones where it doesn’t matter.
You might find me cold and immoral. Callous. I was born in this mountain. On the dark rock my mother conceived me in secret. I was born dirty – have been so for centuries. Amalia was born on top of this mountain, in the villa up there. She was born clean, It was us naming her otherwise, although she had a sorry ending by my dirty hands. Fate was not kind to her, not kind to mankind.
But I am not part of man. I have no fate.
I died there too, in the marble arcade of her burning palazzo. The roaring fires of the peasants’ uprising lit up and made me see those wonderful frescoes in blue and gold. I could name none of the ancient gods I saw… I could name only… beauty.
My effigy is here inside the mountain. A primitively rendered face perched atop a brute body of lava stone. And now I am trying to crawl up again, away from this hideous statue, to stand in the chapel beside her effigy. And what made me try again to get up there? I will tell you.
I saw Dirty Amalia on my smartphone.
