Imagine the movie Quarantine (or Rec, if you’re a horror movie connoisseur, live in Spain, or a hipster). Imagine that apartment building, where crazy-zombie-virus was set loose and infected the residents of the upper floor.
Remember that little girl? The one who (extremely graphically) attacked her mother? Imagine her.
Now imagine sitting in near-pitch-blackness in the stairwell at the top floor of that apartment building. Yeah, the floor where the crazy guy did all his genetic experiments and where the most ferocious zombies were. The floor where the camera woman was dragged to a mysterious and presumably gruesome death.
That’s where I’ve spent the past 90 minutes. Well, there’s no zombies here (that I know of), but every noise is terrifying. Despite the darkness, I can make out the silhouette of a cat, which has been staring at me the entire time I’ve been here. Does it smell panic? Does it know how close I am to entering into a fear-induced coma? Can cats catch zombie-viruses? Are my wives here in spirit, the cat-lovers they are, and guarding me?
Ben finally comes back (to my absolute relief), and I leave to take a walk and shake off my tension.
As I meander through the narrow roads, I find a side of Florence I didn’t know existed. Florence had its glory days as a major producer of art long ago, but tonight, I saw more than ever how art never left Florence.
In the piazza near the Uffizi Gallery, there are statues from the Renaissance scattered around shops and fountains. Tonight, there was a stage, loud music, and dancing like I’ve never seen. I caught the latter half of the performance, and couldn’t take my eyes off of the stage. It was dramatic, powerful, and thoroughly captivating.
Eventually, night melted into morning, and as I walked towards the train station at 4am, the wheels from my suitcase steadily clicking against the cobblestone streets, Florence gave me her goodbye present. She tucked in the herds of tourists, the traffic, everyone, and let me see the city as someone would see a museum or basilica if they were the only ones there. The initial awe soon wears off, as I realize that I’m looking at nothing more than a skeleton. What I see is a shell, there is no context to this place. Without people, the city looks like a movie set, or a peculiarly large section at Epcot. It was while walking through these streets for the last time, when I had spent the past week thinking about how much I wish it wasn’t “peak tourist season” (as if I’m not a tourist myself, right?) that I realized that the tourists were as much a part of this city as the locals.
If I lived here, perhaps I’d converse with my neighbors as such:
“Buongiorno, Francesco,” I’d say, grabbing my morning newspaper off the urine-streaked streets, “Ci sono molti turisti recentemente. che spettacolo...”
We’d laugh and discuss their funny accents; it would become a yearly tradition. June and July, I think, would belong to the tourists.
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