Still Life
by Ludovica Bastianini from Pozzuoli, Italy
After the quarantine in March until May, my partner and I hastily moved to Pozzuoli, a town of about 80,000 inhabitants, in the province of Naples. The risk of a second lockdown made us desire to live in a place with easy access to the sea and natural parks, less polluted by city smog and by the constant noise of ambulances. Summer here was spent in an apparent idyll. It gave us the illusion that nothing had happened, that we would soon start again with our usual lives. For me, who had based my work mainly abroad, life entered into a sort of standby: the company I was working for, based in Switzerland, has been telling me, since March, that maybe we will re-start the "next month".
In the meantime, infections rise again, restrictive orders start again, a new quarantine has come, and more and more commercial activities declare bankruptcy.
This beautiful place, where I live now, once was overcrowded with restaurants, bars and pubs. Now, day after day, it is more and more empty.
Still, between visions of the past and a future which is difficult to imagine, I wait and observe.
