Emigraine - Chapter Two
Words and Photography by Michele Maria Serrapica
THE ROMANTIC WOOLGATHERER GETS LUCKY DESPITE A VERY POOR TALK. BAD KARMA ACCUMULATES
Phonzo has never been a propagandist.
You might find in him a smooth talker or a not-so-loud one, he can play quite well the one-on-one game too, but public disquisitions are definitely not his thing. Hence, he has never talked his procreators through his plan. He has never directly told them about any plan actually. To be honest, he didn't even have a plan at the time. He just happened to feel this light bulb switching on in his head, although it must've been a very cheap one.
“Ma, Pa, I'm going to Londinium” “On holiday?” “No, on minimum wage”.
This dramatisation is quite loyal to its original version as Phonzo opted for a quick and kind-of-direct assertion believing his begetters to be loyal to their traditional drama. Instead, once again, those not-too-old-but-not-even-quite-young-anymore people gave their simpleton opus a life lesson: pain is silent, no matter what Hollywood blockbusters or Latin American telenovelas want to sell you. True drama is Pa switching to mute for a week and letting Ma not only doing her talk, but also his! Phonzo took several moons to recover from those interminable seven days.
Getting ready to such a big move was going to be an even heavier burden.
As the voices from the internet taught him, the first issue would have showed up straight after the landing, with the Identity Check Patrol at the Imaginary Line Drawn By Not-So-Imaginary Wars. Phonzo has always had only one identity, his, as far as he knows, but, coming from the Booty Peninsula, automatically turns simple tasks in complex quests for errant knights. They happen to be nostalgic people, so, instead of having hard plastic identity certification, as they do also in those countries of the former Not-So-Communist Union which public opinion would define penniless, they still print them on soft and easily breakable paper, one of the things that the Celts Patrols hate the most.
However, some troubles are easier to overcome than others, so, with the right amount of dosh and plenty of time ahead of him, Phonzo ordered a Travellers Identity Booklet, which he might even be able to fill with cool stamps from all over the globe if he'll ever manage to leave the Ancient World. But, as we all say, when one door opens, many others close, and this brought our romantic unhero to the second step of what was starting to look like a plan: where to crash once landed in Londinium.
Londinium is a competitive human settlement under every conceivable aspects and finding a roof under which take shelter during the numerous rainy days of the year might be even harder than finding a lucrative profession under a likeable master. In Londinium, you will find yourself competing even for the smallest room in the smallest flat in the dirtiest building in the worst connected area. Worthless to say time is crucial. Demands and offers are so fast room sellers are unable to keep up with themselves. By the time you say yes, that pitch black cellar has been already rented to someone else three months ago. Thus, most of the emigrant tours start from hostels. Expensive beds shared with cosmopolitan fleas in expensive dorms shared with dudes screwed up by experimental medical treatments is the Once Upon A Time of every non-Celts woolgatherer. The only positive implication of doing back and forth between the current fleas and the many possible future ratholes is you're going to learn quite soon how repugnant the Cylinder can be and, in case, getting used to it.
However, Phonzo has been able to avoid this process because he happened to know (or he thought he knew at least) Luchino, who had a room of his own.
Luck strikes even the unlucky every now and then. It was yet too early for Phonzo to learn the importance of having a bed of his own. Life was just postponing its sadistic and mentally endangered game.
