Enrico Maso, translated into English by Ruth Stephens
Chapter 1 – Signor Antonino
It’s early morning: seven o’clock and a beautiful sunny day..
“Beep, beep, beep….”
The alarm goes off. Antonino opens his eyes, turns it off, yawns and turns over.
“Beep, beep, beep,,,,”
Ten minutes later the alarm rings again. Antonino gets up slowly and makes his way to the bathroom, showers and shaves. He makes coffee and gets dressed: beige trousers, white shirt with blue stripes, brown moccasins. He takes his coffee into his study. On a chair is his briefcase. Antonino looks at it.
Signor Antonino Consueti has been retired for two years. His life is very different now – no deadlines, no important work appointments, no rush hour traffic, few worries but then again, not much to do either.
Now, at the age of 65, he has plenty of free time; he does a lot of walking around the city, he goes to the market every day with his wife, has long chats with his neighbours and can finally read all those books that have been piled up beside his bed for so long.
Antonino picks up the newspaper that is lying under the bag and wanders into the sitting room. He sits down on the sofa and opens the paper at the listings pages.
“Up and dressed already?” asks his wife who has only just woken up.
“Good morning, dear! I know we’re retired now but you know I like to get up at the same time. It’s a habit. By the way, how about doing something different this evening. Shall we go to the cinema?”
“Antonino, dear! It’s only eight o’clock in the morning! I don’t know…. We’ll see…” his wife replies, going into the kitchen. Antonino is left alone, and realises he has absolutely nothing to do.
