Vestavia Hills. Christian Perego

already perceived a baritone and slightly silent voice that murmured something; but he had never heard the words as clearly as in this last nightmare.

      It sounded like the off-screen voice of a horror film. In which all the horror that happened aimed at swallowing him up, Robert.

      After slowly making a reason that he was in his room and not in a hellish church, and having become aware that he had not participated in any ritual officiated by a kind of demon with a cassock, he got up.

      The contact of the bare feet on the cold floor always helped to relieve him, awakening him completely and ensuring solid touch with reality.

      Robert glared at the sleep pills that the doctor had prescribed for him: "Fuck the pills and the damn doctor."

      He had approached him almost immediately after having his first nightmares.

      Robert Red was an apprehensive type who immediately became agitated by a problem and became nervous if he didn't find a solution just as quickly.

      The doctor had ruled that there was nothing to worry about having a little restless sleep.

      "People nowadays live, or decide to live, in a state of permanent stress. If we take into account some worries related to your job, it is not strange, Robert, that you sleep badly," so he had ruled. After that, he had prescribed the pills.

      Not that at the beginning, they didn't work. But within a few weeks, not even the double dosage that Robert had ordered himself had banished the night's anxieties.

      The young man had persevered with the therapy. But now, the time had come to convince himself that it was not adequate, and to curse pills and the doctor.

      Robert went to the bathroom and looked sadly in the mirror at his face, which had a swollen and half-destroyed look; it could not even appear angry, so overwhelmed with tiredness as it was.

      Might as well get ready to start the day, perhaps with a walk. The city wasn't too bad in the early morning.

      Robert Red took a shower, with a final rinse almost frozen to activate the mind and muscles. He shaved. Then he went to the small kitchen of his two-room rented apartment. He slowly chewed some toast and sparingly drank black and unsweetened coffee from a large cup, then sat on the sofa for a few minutes.

      "If you go on at this rate, old friend, you will become a plain and simple, lunatic," Robert said to himself, smiling through gritted teeth at what he had just predicted.

      Robert Red was not about to turn into a lunatic, even if, even before the problems of insomnia affected him, this sentence had been given to him twice.

      The first one was a very drunk girl, with whom he had tried to flirt at a party. Therefore, there wasn't much to pay attention about. The second time had been much more painful, because it came from his ex, Jenny, and established the definitive break between the two of them.

      "This chick looks a little like Jenny," thought Robert in front of the image of a seller of cosmetic products on the TV he had just turned on.

      Then he looked at a book he had on the table: a rather mediocre novel, by an author who was branded by many as equally mediocre, but that he had wanted to buy anyway, to have something undemanding to distract himself with.

      It was a hard-boiled story, but without the inventiveness and ease of writing that characterized the best of its kind. It was the story of a girl suspected of killing her first husband, she then remarried with the "typical" old man full of money, and avoid generating other suspicions of having murdered that one too for the common inheritance issue. But then: did the girl's friend know she had a lover or hadn't told her yet up until the chapter he read?

      He couldn't remember.

      But why puzzle over that nonsense? Ideas of a scribbler lacking ambition.

      He took the book and flicked through a few pages; he went to the more crumpled ones, which he had read several times, because, even if lacking an exciting plot and characters, some phrases, some atmospheres had not seemed so wrong to him. Maybe they could give him some ideas.

      Yes, because Robert Red was a writer. He wanted to be. He aimed to be one of those who fund a bank account with several zeros thanks to their talent as storytellers.

      He wasn't too bad as a storyteller.

      Or so he thought. However, his self-esteem improved thanks to some friends who encouraged him, and by a sort of literary critic's opinion, someone who his cousin Tod introduced him to, and who had decently evaluated his first job.

      At that time, Robert had a career without shame nor praise, in the office of a medium-small company in Vestavia Hills, so he was drawn to that dream.

      He spent an entire summer and even part of the fall of 2006 to find a publisher for his novel.

      In short, it had not been what you call an easy task, but in the end, he had made it.

      Then, making a little effort on himself and his pride and, following the advice of his then editor, he had corrected and rewritten some parts and, something decent had come out of his pages managed to sell some copies.

      According to him, not bad, as a start.

      In short, he had become a writer, he thought and had decided that was what he wanted to do.

      To hell with family advice and the myth of a steady job that guarantees you a living.

      Sure! That guarantees you a life that is always the same, a filthy apartment in an anonymous area of the center, and a series of days as nobody; opinion that you ended up thinking about yourself too.

      It was not a guaranteed career that of a novelist, but Robert felt he wanted to try it with more energy than just a hobby.

      Even now, of course, he was working on a novel: "something outstanding," he always said to those who asked him about it. Obviously, with insomnia and nightmares, it was not easy at all.

      The time had come to get some fresh air. Robert dressed without too much haste, still dazed by the startling awakening.

      He put a cap on his head, closed the door of the apartment with so little care as not to correctly remember if he had done so, and went down the stairs. As soon as he stopped in the street for a moment, slightly dazzled by the light of the day, since he had not lifted the blinds when he got out of bed, to preserve the shade, which gave him the impression of being able to rest a bit more somehow.

      The vision of a woman holding her son by the hand paralyzed him for a moment because it reminded him of the dream, the sunken orbits, and that black shadow instead of eyes. But luckily, this time, he wasn't in a nightmare. The woman stared at him in passing: she had a typical look. The boy didn't even notice him.

      Robert didn't particularly like wandering, going from one shop to another just to look at the goods on display. But he tried to do it for at least an hour so that the metallic taste sensation he had in his mouth would be driven away by all the smells of the city.

      Then it occurred to him that he could call Tricia, the person he was in contact with, and who was in charge of correcting and reviewing the material he sent for the publishing house.

      It was only the first three chapters, but when Robert sent the first one, he was told by the selection manager, "Hey, this stuff is good! Really!" The man certainly was not Ken Follet in finding the words to express his thoughts, but, damn, that precisely was what Robert wanted to hear.

      However, what could he have said in the phone call?

      "Yes, good morning Miss Thompson, Tricia. I am Robert Red; I just wanted to inform you that I am a little ... well ...stuck. You know. Health problems. Insomnia. I can't work without a clear mind".

      No, it would have been a very pathetic call.

      "Yes, of course, I know you have a schedule. Don't worry, I'm doing a restorative therapy, and I'll be in shape shortly. You'll see!"

      Even more pathetic.

      He decided not