Castriotta: “Manfredonia, the murder in front of the former Chamber of Labor in 1950”
THAT DAWN the street was like a parabolic corridor, of perforated and stony marble, paved, there was no sidewalk, the houses were level with it.
Under a step of some door there was a plate of pasta that had been dry for a few days in that small, three-walled courtyard at the front! With the rain pouring down, swollen and cloudy, at the hour the barge loaded with food set off towards the Island of Tremiti!
A jacket flowed with water abandoned on the ground like torn fabric, like a rag, with a red stain that colored a petunia; cumbersome streams descended petulantly at the height of the door steps and entered the houses on the ground floor, taking their way towards the Municipality and the church of San Domenico.
From a glass window a face peering out from a lit light reflected its shadow, due to the very bad day; an ancient curtain of the heavy ones made of rough fabric material open, the image of a gossiping lady!
The fountain also splashed on a fishing box on a jackknife, on a lifeless body; face down on an unleveled hole.
The gate of the full sewer was also roaring and overflowing noisily, the killing had taken place in absolute silence!
The city was dark grey, everything seemed like evening before the eyes of someone who looked without opening his mouth and breathed with his own, respiratory and silenced self, still in his immobility to be able to speak.
A woman came out and covered her head and checked, the victim had a knife next to his washed foot, he had recently died: about half an hour ago.
The place threatened by the continuing inclement weather seemed like no one’s city, maimed like a thoughtless writer, silent in his voice, where no one decided to do anything.
Then someone finally decided to alert the police, when the patrol arrived with little speed of sound, they got out of the car to carry out the first investigations.
They examined wetly on those slippery tiles, the wound, the fatal blow seems to have been on the liver side!
The shape was there splashing. Around the 1950s next to the city hall – as the rain increased and people started to show up.
Edited by Claudio Castriotta
