Olivia and Bianca pass the entire day in Olivia's room, they try new make-up combinations on (some of which Cornelia made at home with natural essences, which Bianca adored), they play videogames, they do their homework together, they gossip about girls and boys from school and, throughout all of that, they never stop intertwining their most genuine, crucial, intrusive thoughts out loud.
While Olivia is an outgoing, blunt girl, Bianca is more quiet, more pacific, but there is one thing that connects the two irrevocably: they have a special light in their eyes, a sparkle of curiosity, a lightning that makes them see the world not as a fixed construct, or a pre-digested bolus of boredom, but rather as an incessant discovery, as a non-stop walk in a spice shop that keeps renovating its flavours every day. The two girls' spirit of inquiry is the undisputable reflection of what being young should mean for all young people: the ceaseless search for your true self and the ruthless questioning of all handed down social constructions.
Olivia and Bianca have found each other because they both possess a sharp mental clarity, and in a world where people get overwhelmed by information, machinations, conspiracies and their most personal vacillations, to be true to the most genuine version of yourself is a gift that you do not want to miss on.
Differently from Olivia and Bianca, the majority of their peers are surprisingly lobotomized, they have perfectly entered the supply chain that modern society imperceptibly pushed them into, and they have adapted to it so well that they can't even recognize that they are only a part of a mechanical system, in which each component is at the same time essential and purposeless. And the magic world was not spared by such flattening either, it had only occurred in a different form there. If on the one hand the Ordinary had lost sight of what truly means to be a reasoning human, on the other hand witches and wizards seemed to have sunk in the sea of their arrogant pride, with no lifeguard on watch, and no lifesaver on sight.
Bianca and Olivia were part of two different societies that were apparently poles apart but, in their deeper core, they had more in common than they could ever imagine.
Cornelia was happy that her daughter finally had a friend, someone she could open up to, learn and have fun with. Cornelia would never forget what the magic world was like, when she was a child in the 70's. It was not a sullen, dull place, like it is now; it was rather an advanced, distinct and well-structured society. The fall from its peak started to happen at the turn of the new millennium, when rigour became so rooted in all aspects of the magic community, that any kind of spontaneity, emotion or lightheartedness began to be considered as highways to failure.
The brutal dehumanization of the magic society was considered as the only possible way to finally set a barrier between the world of the Ordinary and that of the Unordinary. The ordinary world had been destroyed too many times by the superificial, impulsive and fatalistic emotions of ordinary men. So, if emotions proved to be so noxious for the Ordinary, how could they bring any good in the world of witches and wizards?
The answer was simple: emotions were meant for the Ordinary, and witches and wizards, from the top of their pride, could never risk becoming like their ordinary counterparts. In a few years, especially between 2010 and 2020, the Supreme Order, or what was left of it, channelled all its resources into dismantling the last bits of humanity that witches and wizards had so proudly safeguarded for themselves through the centuries.
With the imposition of a sterile society, witches and wizards started to be blinded by their own severity and determination. They became cold-blooded, hideous and they began to embrace those same non-values that they used to fight so hard against in their past. The hatred toward diversity, homologation, strict authority and limitation to personal freedom, which had by then only characterized ordinary society, now started to be integrated in magic society as well, resembling the despicable dictatorships that the Ordinary fell victim to, in the 20th Century, and whose infamous ideologies, even after a hundred years, still seemed to impregnate the social tissue of the ordinary world.
The ordinary and unordinary world do not seem to be so different now, after all: both worlds are governed by cruel individuals, who are evidently uninterested in the real needs of the people. To them, it is only important that folks remain poor, because the poorer folks are, the richer and the more powerful they can get.
Corruption has digged in the deepest roots of both worlds by now, bringing infections in the smallest pores of the bedrock. The only way to survive in such virulent environments is to run away, to run away as far as possible and never return.
«Cosimo, you're back! Tobia has something important to tell you, it's about that strange dream he's been having... but please, try to trust him this time, I do...»
«Cornelia, listen carefully, because I won't be telling you this one more time. Tobia and Olivia are in that phase of their lives when they are approaching collective dreaming for the first time, and they are scared of it, it's normal, it's just like it happened to you and me... don't you remember how scared you were when it started happening to you? You should know better!»
«No, now you are going to listen to me! Who the hell are you?! You are not the wizard I have known my entire life! Ever since we moved here you have been acting like a sociopath, and now you're even threatening me?! What do you mean you will not be telling me this one more time?! Are you out of your mind?!»
«Sorry, you're right, I didn't mean it to sound like that... you know I would never hurt you.»
«It is not only physical violence that hurts, Cosimo! You have been absent for months! What is going on?! I can't continue like this! I feel lonely in my own house, and the kids have not received any of your attention lately, neither did I! What is it, Cosimo? We can work on it but, please, just let me know what is going on!» Cornelia walks straight up to Cosimo's face, and takes his face in her hands. She looks at him right in his pupils, to see if something remained of that piece of a boy that she fell in love with, when she was their kids' age. His eyes are vitreous, dormant.
«Trust me, Cornelia, you have to trust me!» Cosimo frees himself from Cornelia's grip, and heads to Tobia's room, only to find it empty. Olivia's room is empty, too.
«The kids are not here!» shouts Cosimo from upstairs.
«They must have gone out with Bianca...»
«Bianca?! Which Bianca?!» continues Cosimo, running quickly down the stairs.
«The girl who lives across the road, she goes to school with the kids...»
«And where did they go?!»
«I have no idea! Why do you look so upset?!»
«I... I just wanted to talk to Tobia, I wanted to tell him that he doesn't have to worry, you all have to trust me, you know I would never do anything that can put us into trouble. I only want the best for you and the kids, you just have to give me time and I'll explain everything...»
«Why can't you just accept the fact that we're here now, Cosimo?! The kids have adapted to the ordinary world pretty well by now! Tobia had a strange encounter this morning, that's what he wanted to talk to you about, but apart from that, they're doing just fine! It is only you who seem not to be able to accept the reality of our lives! You're making it harder than it is, for all of us!»
«Strange encounter... what do you mean?!»
«Cosimo... you have been so defensive lately, that you are not even able to hold a conversation, either with me or the kids! You have to stop whatever it is that you're doing! I want the old version of you back, now!»
«Cornelia, what did Tobia tell you about his encounter?!» Cosimo sounds impatient, his tone of voice can't hide the tension that has tightened his neck muscles, and his eyes are becoming red with rage.
«Are you even listening to what I'm saying?!» yells Cornelia at him.
«I am, Cornelia, I am! But I need to know what he told you, first!» Cosimo raises his voice and slams his fists violently on the table, while looking at Cornelia with a vicious gaze that she has never seen on him before.
After the terrific thud of Cosimo's fists on the table, the silence in the room becomes insufferable.
«What have you become?» mumbles Cornelia, with her hands covering his mouth for the consternation, and tears streaming down her petrified face.
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Triora's Trial
الخيال (فانتازيا)Life as a teenager is hard, but for teenage witches and wizards it is even harder.
