Escape From Venice (Snake's first postcard to Utopia)


Utopia,

Just arrived in Venice.

As I suspected, tourists everywhere!  But what can you do about it.  Besides, it’s not as if I’m a local.  Not like I belong here.  (Not like anyone does.)

I’ll tell you one thing: this place ain’t what it used to be.  Trash everywhere.  Gonna be tough to get an authentic Italian meal.  Although they let you row the gondolas yourself nowadays.  That’s pretty awesome.  You know I always wanted to do that.

First thing I did on arriving?  Went to La Fenice, the opera house.  (That’s where I’m writing you from.)  Remember the one from that film, where the Italian woman is fucking that Austrian soldier whose pants are always wedged way up his ass and she gives him that cash that Italians were going to use to fight the Austrian soldiers? 

No one asked me for a ticket.  Found an empty seat near the back, though it was pretty packed.  Hushed.  I don’t know what they were performing, think it was Cavalli, but it’s been a while.  The stage was lit by three torches, or not torches, just big bowls with burning oil in them. One man was on stage, a bull of a man, his voice massive, it leapt and ran, climbed like a deer, like shadows, like the fact that I wept, sentimental old coot I am.  It soared high, highest and just then, just a moment ago, when it dropped from its peak, he drew the knife that had been drawing from the aria’s start the rest of the way across his neck, the last note ending in a hiss, in an opening gurgle.  His throat whistled.  The sound of the blood is lost in the applause, but still, I know it is there.

Wish you were here.

Love,
Snake

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