The Dawn Of Sin. Valentino Grassetti

I'm sorry, Doctor, I'm a bit nervous…"

      "It's okay. We're among friends. Express what you want to say calmly" the psychiatrist exclaimed distractedly while typing with two fingers on the keyboard.

      Adriano emitted a restless sound.

      "I mean that man, Sebastian Monroe, should not have provoked him."

      As Adriano spoke, Salieri clicked on the file that contained the boy's medical history. The man noticed something unusual. He smoothed his chin. He took a look at Adriano. He looked at the screen again and frowned at his eyebrows.

      "The incident on stage. Maybe it was this thing” said Adriano, reclining his head to grab it in his hands. "This

      thing that's here, inside my head. Maybe it doesn't just take root here, maybe it can take root anywhere. Maybe it's already everywhere."

      Adriano talked, ignoring that he was no longer the center of Dr. Salieri's attention. The psychiatrist had put an earpiece in his ear and was completely absorbed by the computer, his fingers drumming nervously on the desk.

      "Doctor, are you listening to me?" Adriano asked him with a moan.

      "Sorry. I got distracted." Salieri replied to the boy as he removed his earpiece, his chest rising relaxed in a sigh of worry.

      "So, you were telling me about this mysterious being” said the psychiatrist with apparent calm.

      "He, the parasite, is looking for her. He's been looking for Daisy all his life… and now he's found her, you see, Doctor? Do you understand what's going to happen? No, he doesn't, because we're just getting started. Sebastian Monroe shouldn't have provoked her. That's why he ended up like that."

      Adriano finished his speech shrugging his shoulders, as if to get something annoying off his chest, and put it aside. This was followed by another twenty-three minutes of conversation, in which the boy managed to put together some coherent, sometimes confused reasoning. Salieri pulled up his shirt cuff to look at the watch, a steel Rolex that needed reloading. He squeezed his thumb and index finger on the spring winding bezel, turned it in small, rapid movements until the hands moved, and said, "All right, Adriano. We're done for today. The hospitalization was a bad thing. I just wanted to see you just to see if you were feeling better. Tell your mother she doesn't owe me anything. But promise me you'll always take the medication. Keep on the five hundred milligram pills. I'll see you next week. Same time."

      The psychiatrist shook Adriano's hand without getting up.

      "Take my greetings to Mrs. Magnoli for me."

      When Adriano left the office, the doctor started smoking. Just two puffs. He squeezed the cigarette on the ashtray and pressed the button on the extension phone to call Greta.

      "Look for Professor Marco Buccelli. Office 102 of the Umberto II Hospital. Tell him it's urgent."

      The doctor lit another cigarette and pulled more nervous puffs until the phone rang.

      "Hello, Marco. How are you?"

      "Dr. Salieri! What a pleasure. Everything's fine. How are you?"

      "I'm fine, thank you. Listen, I'm calling about Adriano Magnoli."

      "Yes. A bad crisis. But we've fix him. Have you seen it?"

      "I've seen it. You haven't fixed a fucking thing" he said in a frank tone that you can only afford with an old friend.

      "Huh? What's the problem?" he asked surprised Buccelli, a man with a wide forehead furrowed with deep wrinkles, and a forest of grey, stubbly hair on his head.

      Roberto Salieri and Marco Buccelli had been university friends.

      A friendship based on no special affinity, except the kind you get when one appreciates the value of the other.

      During their university studies, they had engaged in endless discussions about Freudian theories. They talked for hours, and when they finally seemed to get to the heart of the matter, they moved away from the problem. Only after several gallons of beer and several grams of marijuana did they find themselves thinking the same way. After 40 years, they stopped seeing each other, but there was still sincere affection between them.