Finding the Thing Within by Coris/ciro Sceusa Page B

his gym and worked out for two hours before returning home, depressed and bitter.
    “I had an amazing day too, and you’re the reason. I don’t know where we’re going with this either, but it doesn’t matter, let’s just live it for what it is. One of us may get tired of the other and we can finish it without much fuss. Neither of us has promised anything to the other and it’s better like this because some promises can’t be kept for some reason or another. I like to keep promises so I avoid making them! Anyway I know I can add a name to my most intimate friends (even if I still don’t know your surname).
    This morning I told you about how I was crazy with happiness but now I’m the opposite, upset and pissed off. After I left you, I passed by a shop window and saw on sale a phone with a dual SIM card, just like my project. So someone is commercializing something that I’ve patented but because they got there first they could sue me for plagiarism. Anyway, I don’t think the company which has showed interest in my design knows about this other product; otherwise they wouldn’t have even shown an interest, wouldn’t you say?
    Lady luck has been a right dick to me (maybe not the right expression, don’t laugh). It seems that written into my DNA somewhere it says that I have to lead a mediocre life and anything good that may come into my life must then go wrong. It’s not just this now, but in everything in my life there have been forces which brought me fortune and those which came to take it away, leaving everything as it had been before. Like as in the Luchino Visconti’s Leopard changing everything, to actually change nothing. It’s like someone holding you, half drowning in the water. Not actually pushing you under, but not helping you out either. Does that make any sense?
    As you can see I’m feeling down tonight. All I can do is ignore this, get on with the prototype and rush to sell the patent. And then it’s up to them to decide if we are dealing with products which are the same, or just similar. I’ve tired you out enough; I’m going to go to bed now too. What with going to the sea and the gym and everything I’m absolutely wrecked. Hugs, Rosario Xx”

Part 6
    Two years earlier, when Rosario was 45, when his father was still alive and he traveled freely, he would often visit his friend Rosy, in Catania. Rosy was beautiful, with a small frame, long, black hair and a porcelain doll face. To top it all she was really nice too. One day she had just been on one of her regular visits to an old fortune teller:
    “Why don’t you come?”
“I don’t think so, I don’t believe in it.”
“So what’s the harm? Let’s go.” And they went. The old woman’s house was on a street in the older
    part of the city. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon and when Rosario entered the little flat, there were already quite a few people sitting in what appeared to be some sort of waiting room. In the middle of the room there was an oblong table and the people were arranged around it.
    They waited for about half an hour before a man accompanied them into a side room. The room was slightly dim and the walls decorated with flowery wallpaper. The ceilings were covered with exquisite frescoes, a sure sign that the house originally belonged to nobility. On the left, there was a balcony with French windows. The room was joined to another, larger room via a tall, antique doorway and since this was only partially closed, Rosario could see period furniture. The ‘old woman’ was a lady in her sixties sitting in an armchair next to a table. She had badlycombed grey hair and spoke in a low voice. She invited them to do the same. She had long, slender hands and a ring on her right hand and a wedding ring on her left. She was dressed soberly and over her legs she had a wool blanket. It was cold around that time.
    “So who’s going to go first?”
“Me,” said Rosy. “If that’s OK with you?”
“It’s all the same