Walking along those empty, narrow streets, under a thin rain, he had felt a presence following him... penetrating deep inside his thoughts... intense.
Erice, a city full of history. Myths, ghosts coming from immemorial ages. Where Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans had worshipped goddess Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus.. all different names for same entity: Love's goddess. Where Heracles had been inbetween one of his famous twelve works. Where Aeneas had made his father's funeral and had left some fellows before departing to other lands. One of those fellows had established there.... a priestess of Venus... forbidden love... departures to other lands, beyond the sea... and broken hopes.
He went on walking. He had been at a bar, some minutes before, talking to someone he had just met with the feeling they knew each other from years. They had been there sharing their past, hoping their future... somehow a souls' meeting, or a gentle touch of mighty Venus?
He finally reached the church and the singular tower, the one that had been, in the past, a watching point to see if ships would come near the town. Both buildings had been built with the stones of the old goddess' temple.
Rain had ended... and a soft, persistent fog was pervading all. He stopped for a while. Something at the tower... A noise? Just breeze?
He looked at its top... he felt it again, extremely intense inside his soul...
Shivering, he went on walking, knowing that nothing would be ever the same... nothing!
And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses - would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories? ~Rainer Maria Rilke
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