My cozy place.

My place.
Tha wall in front of the bed I spend 23 hours in is made of solid bricks, taken from the warehouse previously occupying my home. It’s 33 bricks high and 20 wide (how many times did I count them, before I could communicate by computer but I had no voice left?).
Some bricks are darker than the others, creating a beautiful chessboard effect. Three of them are stained. I look often at my wall, and its sturdy solidity, which I ignored when I was healthy, rassures me now. A small part of it is covered by a bioethanol fireplace and the new tv, so the company of my wall is assured and comforting at night. Beyond is a bright orange wall, semicircular and stopping halfway up, so as to show the ceiling of the first floor, in whitened larch, like the splendid furniture I fell in love with during my frequent trips to Barbados.
To build the two semicircular walls (the other one, simmetrical to the first, is in the kitchen), my uncle Piero came from “Zena”, as locals lovingly call Genoa. I’m not talking about a nobody, here, since he contributed building the famous aquarium. To find the exact colour I had in my stubborn mind we spent a whole morning, among my oncle’s coursing and my own. When we found THE colour a whispered “Belin!” and a light slap on my cheek announced the end of hostilities. Four big blue metal columns at each end of the circular walls are concrete-filled and hold up the house. We’ve felt earthquakes, but that’s as far as it goes.
I’m not only stubborn but also strange, at least as far as architecture goes. How many other people would have the idea to overturn construction standards? Usually to build an attic you use metal formworks that are then dismantled and used for the next one. Instead, I wanted to keep them for good, fighting with the saint who was my architect and whose only flaw was to be from Verona (sorry, Michi) This means metal ceiling on the ground floor.
The floor is concrete, as in industrial buildings, and the best heat conductor for the underground heating system (I can’t stand radiators). The color is non-conventional, of course: light blue with grey nuances.
Maybe to take revenge for the metal ceiling the architect was struck with a health-conscious epiphany: he demanded the use of alveolar panels under the floor of the basement, and metallic ducts visible on the walkway outside, to avoid radon gas, that if not evacuated could have been dangerous for our health. Thanks a lot, Italo. I never got sick from radon. Too bad the bitch exists.
The room’s only flaw is the new plasterboard wall, necessary for building a new bathroom. I used to sleep upstairs, until the night when I fell from the stairs. Nine stitches on the head and a good scare for Nick and Holly, whom I called to take me to the hospital, when they saw the amount of blood on the floor (I was already seeing Aiste but she wasn’t living in Italy at the time).
The living room became my room. Advantage: from my window I see the garden and its plants. The disadvantage: no privacy, not a big bed to share with my woman. And Aiste gave up the big bed upstairs to sleep on a couch near me. When, in the morning, I’m ready to go to sleep, she brings the sofa near my bed and holds my hand…
Not a conventional home, like many in Mantua, with a solid wood door, central hall with four rooms and the marble stairs going upstairs. Well, you can forget them if you come to my place. My door is blue metal, and the stairs are of steel: they’ve been left outside intentionally, in wind and rain, to rust, and then a special product has been brushed over to stop rust. Guess who was the painter?
I hope the description of my place was detailed enough. If it’s the case, I guess we feel closer than we already did.