Though I am under the belief that most of my work has been leaked. Which to say this is unfortunate would be an understatement. Nonetheless as my projects approach there is still some promotional work that needs to be done. 

In the build up for a new short story collection, published under one of my aliases "Delta Okes", I will be releasing a handful of short stories as blog posts on my website. I am starting with this one "What a Strange Day" because I am feeling nostalgic.

 

A Truly Strange Day 

Um, hi, my name is Stephano. You guys know that. Um, for my strangest thing I have ever heard presentation I’d like to tell you about this time with my grandpa. It was a couple of years back. He met me at the school, so he could walk me home. My house is only a mile away, if you cut through the aqueduct trail.

Anyways he met me the way he did sometimes. He is a really good grandpa. Very quite but you can tell he is strong. Whenever he comes to pick me up we always walk in silence.

On this day we are walking down the hill. Passing the liquor store and the barbershop. On the way to that Italian deli on the corner. The one with soggy and salty wings, but good cold cuts. 

We were quite the whole time but when we are about halfway down the hill there is a ball stuck in the middle of the hill. Resting just off the curb on the street. He looked at it very suspiciously. I thought it was strange but I thought it was stranger how strange my grandpa thought it was.

He got real low and inspected it from multiple angles. Finally, I flicked it. It began to roll down the hill. My grandpa watched it roll with his hands on his hips. 

We began to walk again. At some point he started talking. He was telling a very unique story. I never heard him talk so much. He usually only said one or two sentences in response to thing. He never talked just to talk.

He said that in 1940 he was sent by the Italian army into French Alps. The first time you see warfare it changes you, he said, though the fighting didn’t last long. 

Seeing the French Alps almost made it worth it, he said. After that his unit was sent from the French Alps to Albania where they would invade Greece from the North. Mussolini was rushing his hand and the attack was poorly planned. They were forced to surrender and he became a prisoner of war. He was sent to Germany where he worked with his fellow comrades in alleviating the labor shortage the country was facing because of the war. 

It wouldn’t be until 1945 when Mussolini was defeated by the Italian Resistance and executed on the firing line, was he released back to Italy. When he did get back to his family, he was malnourished and tired. He had lost two fingers, but didn’t say how. He never says how. 

And he is telling me this story that I kinda know. People have told me details here and there but this is my first time hearing it from him. He is telling me all of this and he looks like there is a tremendous weight on his forehead. He finally says to me, “I have seen warfare in the French Alps, invaded the great country of Greece, been a prisoner of war, returned home and concluded it was best to leave. Come to a new country to start over again, have children and raise them, just to watch them have children of their own. Of everything I have ever experienced that ball stuck on the hill was by far the strangest.”.

I wanted to tell this story because it was the day my grandpa experienced the strangest thing he ever saw. And I experienced the strangest thing I have ever heard. 

Copyright 2024 D.Hernandez All Rights reserved.

This piece of writing belongs to D. Hernandez and D.Hernandez alone. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.