William had built a tiny world: home, school and his only friends: his older brother Giulio and his best friend Carlo. William wasn’t an open person; he preferred staying by himself and giving freedom to his thoughts. He spent his free time at school looking at his smartphone.
He was a smart guy, even too much for his age. He often looked inside of himself, trying to discover who he was and what he wanted to do: in fact, his brother called him “the philosopher." But he felt that he didn’t belong to the world: he paid no attention to Carlo and Giulio’s conversations about soccer or girls and girlfriends.
One day, while the two brothers were coming back home from school, Giulio was curious to know if William liked someone, but he felt embarrassed and he didn’t reply. Indeed, he didn’t like any girls, he had never felt attracted to girls.
That thought raised many doubts and questions: “Why don’t I like girls?” Those issues sounded in William’s head and heart for a long time. He slowly realized that his feelings were unclear. One more doubt surfaced: “If I don’t like girls, who do I like?”
A few days after, it was Carlo’s birthday. So William wanted to buy a special gift for his best friend. While he was walking to look for it, he stopped to think that maybe his feelings for Carlo went beyond friendship. He was overwhelmed by that thought, made of fear, happiness, weirdness, insecurity, and many other emotions. So the morning after he met Carlo at the coffee bar near the school and no matter how embarrassing it was, his heart spilled out: he found strength and courage he didn’t think he had.
Carlo was shocked, but suddenly he burst out laughing. William was hurt by that reaction and even angry about it: he had opened all of himself to someone and now he felt he had made a fool of himself, and was hit by a spear on a defenseless body.
But the worst wound was coming…
William and Carlo avoided each other for a while, but eventually they met after school and they talked. William wanted to explain that he wasn’t joking and that his feelings were true, but he didn’t expect such a bad reaction from Carlo: Carlo started to hate him, saying that he was a monster and that he should not talk to him anymore.
William’s sadness turned into desperation when he saw Carlo’s Instagram post on his homosexuality, making a fool of him. He spent hours and hours reading all the comments and he ended up being covered with insults and threats.
Although the comments were heavy and bad, there were people who were supporting and loving him.
Anyway, William started to shut himself down, and he refused to leave his room. Only Giulio, after a few attempts, managed to convince him to talk. He told him he loved him anyway, no matter if he was gay or not, because some people are not better than others by the way they feel love. He said he had been very brave, because he had found the courage to come out. He also pushed him to go back to school: William needed to show his haters he wasn’t ashamed of his gender. So, going back to his school life, William realized that he didn’t want to be stifled by all those comments and oppressed by people's judgement.
The most important thing is to accept and love our truest selves.
This is not only William’s story, but also the story of young men and women of our world.
Unexpected Encounter
by Bianco, Malavolti, Fantoni
In the remote countryside in Southern Italy, on a warm spring day, a boy named Olby went out to play with his ball in the garden. After a few dribbles, he accidentally threw the ball into an old tree. Immediately, he took a long stick and tried to get it. Failing in the attempt, he decided to climb up to reach his ball. Once he had grabbed it, he began to climb down, but a branch broke off and fell down, causing him to fall along with a mysterious object. After getting up, Olby approached the strange object with curiosity: it had a rectangular shape and was covered with a kind of glass that reflected the sunlight. Impressed, he took the object home and once in his room, he placed it delicately on the desk.
A few hours later, towards evening Filip, Olby's father, came back from work, and like every Friday, he went to his son's room to spend some time with him. When he went into the room, he immediately noticed the object and asked his son where he had found it. Olby answered that he had found the object in the tree in front of the house. His dad, impressed, told him that it was a telephone and that only a minority of people possessed one. At dinner, they went to the kitchen table to eat with Olby’s grandparents. After dinner, Olby came back to his room and because it was late, he went to bed. In the middle of the night, the boy awakened because of a strange sound from the phone; so he woke up. From the bed he saw that the phone was releasing a white light. He took it in his hands and read a message signed by an unknown "Rose." The message said: How are you? Where are you? Why don't you message anymore?! Olby, intrigued, touched the message and the phone changed its screen and showed him a chat full of messages from Rose. There was also a keyboard for writing.
The first message of the chat he read asked him to write down the name of the person who had found the phone in the tree in front of his house. Two minutes later he got another message from Rose explaining that the phone belonged to her father, who disappeared at war. Olby wrote her asking if he could do anything for her, and she replied that she did not have many friends and that her father was the only one she trusted. She also told him that she felt lonely since her mother had died of a disease. When her mother died, her father couldn't pay the rent of the house in the city, so they moved to the countryside to her grandparents’ house. She consequently lost all her friends. They continued to write to each other all night, and they found out they had a lot of things in common. For example they both liked to go for long walks in the countryside and loved being with animals.
Weeks went by since that evening they had written to each other for the first time, and there had never been a day without one of them taking care of the other. They continuously wrote to each other at any time of the day because they had become best friends in a virtual way.
One day Filip went to tell Olby that he had prepared a week-long trip to Val D'Aosta. He immediately went to pack his bags. With his parents he set out for 13 long hours until they reached Saint-Pierre. When they arrived, they immediately went to the hotel to put down the bags and Filip went to rest for a while. Olby, instead, decided to leave the hotel and go for a walk around the village. While he was walking, he began to message Rose. His mind was absorbed by the phone so he did not pay attention to where he was going. Suddenly he crossed the road without looking at the cars and was hit by a blue car with a young girl at the wheel, who was distracted by her phone. Immediately the girl got out of off from the car and called an ambulance. At the arrival of the ambulance, the girl, feeling very guilty, decided to follow it to the hospital. When they arrived at the hospital, the paramedics put the boy into a hospital bed waiting for the arrival of the doctor. The girl followed them and sat in a chair near the bed. While waiting for the doctor, she called Olby to tell him about the incident, but as soon as she was calling him, she heard the ring of the boy’s phone near her. Curious, she took the phone from the pocket of the boy’s jacket and saw her name “Rose” on it. She then answered the call and heard her eco….
She suddenly realized that the boy she had hit with the car was Olby! When the doctor arrived, he immediately saw that Olby’s condition was serious, and said that he had to be taken immediately to the operating room. After a while, Filip arrived at the hospital and asked Rose what had happened. They waited three hours together until the surgeon left the operating room. The doctor sadly approached Olby's father and told him that they had done everything possible to save his son's life, but now there was nothing more to be done. After the news of the doctor, Filip began to cry crouched on the ground. Rose, who had witnessed the whole scene, did not have the courage to ask how the operation had gone and left the hospital in tears. She cried for days until one day she decided to throw the phone away because it had been the cause of her friend's death.
Adrien Clarke, A Man of Our Time
by Paolo Lottini, Francesca Pastorelli, and Niccolò Presenti
Six a.m.: the alarm clock is ringing. "Oh, my God, I'm still asleep and I'm already late!" I ran out of my house, well dressed, perfectly shaved and ready for another working day!
Hi, I'm Adrien Clarke, 32 years old, American. I attended the very best schools, and I graduated in business and finance from Columbia University. I've been working for a business bank for five years.
I drink my coffee to go while I'm waiting for the metro. In about twenty minutes, I am usually at my office, but today it is a bad day. There's another strike and the line is out of service. Twice in a month! And I run, faster than I can, and finally I arrive … all flushed and sweaty.
I work almost twelve hours a day, six days a week. I don't know what fatigue is. Working is my pleasure. I'm ready, as always, to carry out my responsibilities and meet the deadlines. I'm so keen on my job that I do not realise that it's already midday. I lift my eyes up from the computer, and I see a letter on my desk.
Who left it? That's my name on it. It's for me! Just a few words: “Happy Birthday! -Lily”
I did not remember that today was my birthday, but she did. She's a pretty girl, she's got a friendly smile and she works in the room next to mine. We're co-workers. Lily is sitting and checking some documents. She hears me knocking at the door and lets me in.
“Happy birthday!” she tells me.
“Thanks! How did you remember my birthday? Even I did not remember it!”
“'Cause I watch and observe what goes on all around me. Last year your parents came to visit you at work to wish you a happy birthday. That's why I remember the date. No one ever comes to visit you nor has lunch with you but colleagues or clients. You work without a break, no time for chatting or drinking coffee. People in the office consider you a workaholic, but I don't think you are. You're just a slave of this system, as many others are.”
I'm speechless: for the very first time I realised who I became! “Many thanks Lily, for everything.”
Seven p.m.: I'm waiting for the metro to go back home and I'm thinking about myself, about my life.
I'm no longer satisfied as I was this morning.
Working can be so hard nowadays! Business affairs can bring wealth, fame, and even a great reputation, but they can limit your freedom as well.
I'm lying in my bed, under a heavy blanket of messages, emails and notes that fill my mind. Right now I know I'm not happy.
I don't want to be so exhausted. I feel I have not spared time for friends or human relationships. No more!
Remaining in touch with our beloved ones is essential as well as belonging to a group. We feed ourselves with the others’ attachment, and we are completed by friendship and love; work can be only be a part, even if an important one, of our lives.We must not live alone. I don't want to live alone!
Half past nine p.m.: I pick my phone up. It's ringing.
“Hello, who's speaking?”
“Lily, it's me, Adrien. I’m calling you to wish you goodnight!”
