ENZO LO GRASSO

      ZHANDALEE

      AND THE FIRST METAMORPFOSIS

      Translated by: Lisa Masoni

      Publisher: Tektime

      INTRODUCTION

      This story tells about an answer to an ever greater need of humanity, the need for LOVE, a love towards our fellowmen, a love towards what is around us, but above all a love for what we have inside each us, that thing that makes us different but that it makes us equally participate to the beauty of life, if we compare life to a wonderful ray of light we can define ourselves as one of the colors that compose it, like the rainbow.

      Telling the episodes of this adventurous story, these seem born by the fantasy, but then observing the reality, I saw that those episodes were real and tangible by who in his daily life pay a little more attention around him, at the end the fantasy is limited only to be a glue of truth, I have not invented this story, in practice it has been written alone and it worth being witnesses aware of certain truth, this truth many times is hidden from everyday life that makes us travel like a one-way corridor without doors or windows, reading this life experience for a moment you will have stopped, you will have created a door where you will come out of the corridor in the light of the sun walking surrounded by unspoiled nature, you will be happy to know that what you are living does not belong to the fantasy but to the lived reality, believe me... you will see that your life will not be the same of before…

      Enzo Lo Grasso

      FIRST INDICATIONS

      Sea of a beautiful day at the end of August, warm sea still full of emotions, the sun is about to set, the seagulls still in the sky spend their last trails, now there is almost no one on the beach, only people that go to their cars directed to the houses to close the beautiful day at sea.

      Everything has emptied now but on top of a high rock, where the waves crashing leaving sea dust in the air, a fifteen years girl named Zhandalee is sitting there.

      Zhandi, as her friends call her, is a dark-skinned girl, a sunny girl with a little bit moved hair and beautiful green eyes, from which the sea is reflected, acquiring a new life. She often comes to this rock after working in the antiquarian shop of her adoptive parents.

      She was adopted by a family who lives in this land of Sicily, her mother was dead in the sea that she loves so much, that sea that brought her and her mother from the mother Africa searching for a hope, but they told her that probably the boat on which they were traveling turned over near the coast and her mother, to put her in a safe place, landed on the bank, she put them in security and then she passed away with a thousands of questions.

      She could not remember because she was two years old, who rescued the woman were her current adoptive parents who that afternoon were on the beach for a romantic engagement anniversary walk.

      We think that Zandi also had a brother she never knew because he had been forcibly taken away by others who had been saved and then escaped out for fear.

      She wanted to do more but what we could ask to a two years old girl?

      Mr. and Mrs. Niversa did not know much about the child entrusted to them, before dying the mother barely said the name of the child and that of her brother Thiago, at first sight he can be said to be greater than her: at that time he must have been at least four or five years old, he was in the arms of a 16 years boy who brought him in his flight.

      According to the cry of Zandi and to the deeds of the woman, we were supposed to be her brother, at least the boyfriend hypothesized.

      The thing that they three had in common, according to the story told by Mr. Paul Niversa, was a similar necklace, each with a chain of white gold, the pendant was a kind of triangle but with a round side and a small red gold bear in the center on which was set a stone, brown for Zandi and blue for the mother. Paul and his wife Linda do not remember well that of the brother, but it seemed red.

      Zandi wore her and her mother's necklace, they got stuck crating a crescent with two blue and brown stone joined by the two little white gold bars, before she died she put her blue-stone necklace at the neck of Zandalee, after that event that woman, after a brief private ceremony, was buried in the village cemetery.

      Zandi often sits on this rock and stays there for a while, because she thinks that the mother's spirit is not dead but lives in the sea where she found the end of her earthly existence, she considers the sea as her mother, and she comes here to talk to her through her feelings, tells her about her day at school with her friends, her mistakes, but also her successes, and she asks for advice, on the other hand it often happens that the sea with an uncommon wave that breaks on the rock turns with the rays of the sun like a thick hand of small coloured droplets that caress Zandi's face, like the hand of a mother gently caressing her daughter's face.... She has this relationship with the sea... she knows that what she feels is not only the result of her belief in identifying the sea with her mother, there is something special that really happens every time she is sitting there, but she does not say nothing to anyone because it is hard to make people understand who is immersed in everyday reality there is also a way to perceive Love different from the common manifestations of affection known...

      It was already late, it is 7.30 pm, it was better to start going back home before evening, she took her belongings and she started walking. During her journey to home all her thoughts were focused on a dream that often repeats, and especially in the last week, every night always the same dream, but the night before she did an unusual one, in the latter she dreams of being in front of a door, an old door without a lock, from where it comes out light from all the perimeter fissures, she tries to open it but she does not know how, she despairs but nothing to do that door does not open, and after having dreamed this she wakes up with a thousand palpitations. It is a nightmare, her adoptive parents thought, but why do dreams torment this girl? Surely think it's a message, but for whom and for what?

      In the meantime Zandi is at the doorstep, he opens the door entering.

      --Hello mother, hello dad, I'm back --

      --My baby, are you all right?-- the mother says

      --Ciao treasure-- Mr. Paolo replies

      Zandi greets with a kiss on the cheek of Linda who with her apron is busy to prepare the table for dinner, and a kiss on the cheek of Paul who reads his newspaper and he maybe not make little account of her. Zandi perceives it and she makes a smile, she leans the books on the ladder to remember to bring them up before going to sleep upstairs where she has her room

      -- Can I help you, mom? --

      -- Thanks, set the table, everything is ready for dinner --

      Here Paolo, Linda and Zandi are at the table, Linda looks at Zandi and says

      -- You have eyes a bit 'tired, have you by chance done that dream again?--

      -- I actually did a different one, but anyway... --

      She nods her head and at the same time shrugs as if to say that she's used to it. Paolo putting down his newspaper, puts a caress on his daughter's head and says

      -- All will disappear, it is only a period of stress, perhaps, do not worry --

      --let's hope --

      Zandi answers but she knows that there is something more than a simple nightmare. Finish dinner and after a piece of film sleep pervades the minds of our little family that decide to go to their rooms. Now all three are upstairs in front of the Zandi’s door.

      -- Please, do some good dreams this time – mom says

      --Maybe you can dream some numbers to play, ehehe," her father said.

      --I'll try,-- the girl replied with a smile, so her parents kissed her on the forehead.

      It’s night, all is silent, Zandi dreams.

      She is again in front of that old door, in alert sleep she watches under the knob, there