ONE MORE SIP

Tommaso could not believe it: a vacation, finally!
He had to work hard to get it: lots of homework, bad marks turned good in few weeks…not to mention the school’s Christmas show, with that embarrassing shooting star costume!
However, after seeing such good results, Francesca and Pierluigi, his parents, couldn’t really say no to it. With a couple of phone calls they managed to rent the cottage where they always used to spend their Winter holidays, and in a single afternoon they all packed their car, ready to leave.
Tommaso was really impatient to wear his skis and speed on the snow, of course wearing his colorful FILA suit. Mountains represented a true passion for him: in town, their silhouettes were visible only far behind skyscrapers.

The car trip didn’t last long: after three hours the whole family got to Porto Elena, the mountain hut they rented. The hut’s owner, Elena, had moved there from Liguria and decided to name her bed and breakfast that way to still feel close to the beach. She had known Tommaso since he was a kid: after the car stopped, the boy jumped off and run towards her.
‘Elena! Elena!’
‘Tommaso, it’s you! Come and give me a hug!’
The two got together after one year, while Francesca and Pierluigi were emptying the trunk. ‘Elena, I’ve been missing you so much! Where are my skis? The snow is waiting for me!’
‘Snow? What snow, Tommaso?’ Elena’s voice, as broken as a sheet of ice, led the boy’s attention towards the ugly truth: the grasses were dry.
‘What happened here?’ the boy asked.
‘My little boy, what did you expect? Global climate is compromised and drought has coincidences during Winter too…we can just hope that things get a little better, but I am not so sure of it…’
The young boy didn’t know how to express the pain and the delusion he felt on the inside. He started running far away, without hearing the voices of those who were calling him back.

Tommaso run fast, until he fell to the ground. He was cold, there was no sign of the snow he had been waiting for so long. All those civics lessons at school were true: the world is changing and we all have to do something. He was out of breath, he drank some water from his keeper. When he put it down on the ground, the air began shivering. An electric shake. A snowflake.
Tommaso got up, amazed by it all: the sky was suddenly full of dots. It was really cold, but he was happy. At his feet, on the ground, the water keeper he was given by a distant museum was standing still, perhaps feeding the earth.
There was magic in the air, and the smell of a new consciousness.
‘Tommaso!’ The distant, worried voice of his mother was calling him.
Tommaso started running again, this time to return to Porto Elena.
The sky was getting dark, but maybe he would have got some time to ski.