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XII – All the World’s a Stage

The air is cold and outside it’s still dark, but I have to get out of bed.

The stone is cold on my feet as a pace to the kitchen. I light a burner and, after spilling some grinds on the table, place a percolator on the small flame to make my espresso. It’s 5 am and there’s no place to go this early. I get dressed in the dark, shivering slightly; the radiators don’t quite warm the apartment. Pulling my frayed gloves on to fight the stinging cold, I walk, hunched over with breath of vapor, to the metro. You can tell the city is waking up; it’s just a whisper this early. A single car passes by and there’s a dog barking in the far, diffused distance.

I reach the station and climb into my vehicle, my partner for the day. It’s the 118; I’ll drive past the Circo Massimo towards Appia Antica, and further to a neighborhood on the outskirts of Rome. We go back and forth all day while we watch the sun rise to warm the earth and cross the sky, before it falls and the oppressive, cold dark returns. All this happens while I watch from my worn-in, hard seat along the road I know so well. It’s all so green now, after all the rain.

Finally making my last route for the day, I go back to the station to walk home. It’s cold again. I open the door, and my young, smiling son greets me. He shows me a drawing of a horse he did in class and smiles sheepishly. I’m home once more.

In the performance of Rome, my role is a bus driver, my prop is a bus, and my stage the streets of Rome.

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