The Maskless Man

Like a bubble in the breeze, I float over country roads. Through a web of houses, cars and moving people. To some of these people I collide and stick, such that I am temporarily carried through their predefined passage until shaken loose and swept away. To others there is the sensation that I collide and envelop them. They continue through their environment and activities as usual, but isolated within my translucent film such that we move as a single entity. Their scene of familiar routine is hazed through a lens of a piece of a transient world. Rarely does a car pull over before I have had a chance to even extend my thumb. This however was the case on the day I met Francesco. While hitching between Sienna and Sere de Rapolano, I was picked up by a kind but completely hairless man who took me all the way to my desired location and gave me his details so that I could stay with him when I came to Rome. So two weeks later I arrived at his apartment and was happy to be greeted by Francesco and his son who then took me out for pizza in one of the pizza places in the narrow cobbled streets of Romes Trastevere. I spent 3 days in Rome with Francesco. I was able to explore the ancient ruins of Palantine hill and the Roman forum, enter the Colosseum and visit the beautiful plazas and fountains throughout the city. Francesco is a cabinet maker and took me into a fancy renovated city apartment in the heart of Rome where he was working on the new kitchen. It was not my preferred homely environment, but modernly sterile and decorated with discomforting large pink cow shaped silhouettes on the walls. Never the less it was interesting to see what I think is a good example of the Italian taste in design. Having his own business, Francesco is a busy man, but always seems to have time to spare, for a complete stranger like me. We had a few interesting conversations, one of which was about dreams and Francesco's multiple experiences of dreaming things before they happen. He was apprehensive to tell me that he had in fact dreamt my face the day before we met. He saw my back pack and the back of my head at the roadside and not until I was in the car and looking at him did he realise, "ah hello, the face from my dream." I am unsure whether he is convinced of any Divine purpose behind these premonitions but accepts them as unexplained phenomenons within the workings of time. His theory is that time is formed like a mesh with many intersections at which we may glimpse other streets. Indeed I felt as if our bubble moved through the ancient Roman streets on a path predestined yet unconstrained, old beside new, the now inside forever, time precious yet not held futilely with selfish anxiety. I hope that I too can learn to take passengers in my time travelling bubble.  Due to a medical condition, Francesco is completely without hair. No eye brows, lashes or whiskers. "It is like I am a blank page", he tells me. A page without a pencil must find alternative means of expression, but always the viewer is exposed to the raw material. To be involuntarily unmasked, perhaps psychologically provides a unique opportunity to be exposed and yet real to the people you meet.
Any way that's a deeply dramatised attempt to profoundly express yet another of the friendly and interesting people I continue to meet. I was also very pleased to re meet a friend of the family I stayed with in Florence. Tizziana gave me a bed for the night and took me out to a small intimate bar to see her boyfriend Roberto perform Brazilian music with his guitar and another man on percussion. Tizziana is an actor and is never without her talkative little stuffed kangaroo friend who is an extension to her persona. Together they are a very friendly and generous woman, living wholesomely within her means. After 4 days of roaming Rome I attempted to hitch hike my way out to Naples the city of trash. Given that all roads lead to Rome you would expect an easy exit. This was not the case, so after a day of flaunting my thumb at a busy motorway on ramp, I relapsed and ashamedly slid into the pit of society with those who indulge in the grotesque practise of public transportation.