You told me that depression was deep sadness and hallucination was deep euphoria.

When you told Dad what the doctor said, he hit you again and then he broke all the windows in the house.

I remember that in the years that followed, you brought me to your friends’ houses and made me walk through all the rooms, asking me which were inhabited by spirits and which were not.

I pointed to the corners of the house and then I fled.

Until the age of eight I often saw a shadow dashing past me but I could never make out what it was.

I went back to the psychologist and he sent me to a psychiatrist who told me to make my madness bear fruit as a way of freeing it.

I drew, but I couldn’t color anything in without going over the edges.

I bought a guitar, but I was afraid that the strings would cut my fingers.

I wrote and something inside me moved.

I wrote, I wrote, I wrote lots and lots, and then I became famous.

And the thing I had freed came back and invaded me.

Killing me.

THIRTY

Once, you and I went for a walk in the country. I had a long stick to help myself climb steep slopes, and every now and then I cynically squashed any lizards that passed close by.

You were pregnant, and your belly was hard and swollen. I was worried that the lizards might hurt you; I was afraid that the whole world might hurt you. So I protected you with my little body and followed you everywhere you went.

We stopped to sit under a big magnolia with white flowers. I remember that the sap spilled from part of the trunk and I stuck my finger in; under the magnolia was a tiny pond in which we bathed our feet. It was spring and the world seemed like Eden.

Countless butterflies and dragonflies swirled suspended between heaven and earth; it was as though they wanted to keep us company but never found the courage to come too close.

“You see those?” you said, pointing to the dragonflies. “They can turn into women.”

“Women?” I asked you, fascinated.

“Yes, women. They come and get you at night in the form of insects and destroy your dreams, they put terrible spells on you, and they can even kill you …,” you said, opening your eyes wide.

“Why?” I cried excitedly.

“They’re women who pray against you. They kneel before a cross and loosen their hair and repeat magic phrases that no one knows.”

“Women on their knees … do you know these magic phrases?” I asked. I wanted to know them, too.

You shook your head and continued: “But I know magic phrases to chase away the ronni ri notti—the night women. They’re the women who turn themselves into dragonflies and fly at night …”

“Oh, yes.”