We were one short

Catania is different.

From the very first day, it gives you a strange feeling.

For someone just passing through, it might even be an unpleasant one—a kind of existential “what am I doing here?”

But if you stay, if you let your guard down just a little, you start to understand the city has something else. Something underneath. Not hidden—buried.

As if it has something it wants to tell you, but only if you’re willing to peel back the first layer.

As if the city were testing you.

Maybe it has to do with its history: with Mount Etna, that restless volcano that destroyed it and buried it in lava, forcing it to rebuild itself over and over again.

And then came the earthquake of 1693, which wiped out nearly everything the lava had spared.

Catania was built on top of Catania. Literally.

Like a geological speakeasy, the city whispers secrets from below—like each old stone has something to say, but only in a hushed voice, and only when no one else is listening.

That night, I dreamed I was coming back to the apartment.

A dirty, ancient staircase, with no real building around it—more like a staircase that randomly connects a couple of doors.

On the first floor, just before mine, there’s a tiny window tucked between tiles and dust.

In the dream, everything happened just as it had in real life: I came home tired, glanced at the little window without thinking much.

From the outside, the shop it looks into has a low, broken, rusted shutter. Just another one of those you see all over Catania—where you can never tell if a place is closed for the day or for the last ten years.

But from the stairs, there’s an angle that lets you peek inside.

And in the dream, I saw something different.

The shop, which looks abandoned during the day, had a table inside.

And five old men.

Playing poker.

Not speaking. Not laughing. Just cards, glasses of grappa, a hanging lamp with yellow light.

Moving slowly, as if stuck in some kind of loop.

And one of them looked at me.

Not surprised.

But as if he recognized me.

As if he were saying: finally.

I woke up sweating.

Didn’t think much of it. Just a dream.

But that morning I got up early—it was moving day.

I went to open the door, still half-asleep, and there it was.

Under the doormat: a note.

No envelope.

No ink.

Written in ash.

It said:

“Ne mancava uno.” (We were one short)