As a child, I would watch with growing anguish as the city emptied out in August. I couldn't wait to join the others and leave too.
As I grew up, however, August became my favorite month to spend in Naples, and I never wasted it again by going on vacation because it is the only time when I could reacquaint myself with the city. It became a truly magical month for me, in which every year the "Miracle of Ferragosto" would take place — that prodigy by which the money that was not there until July would appear the following month to allow people to go to the sea.
But this year, something has changed.
The spell is broken and the anguish I felt as a child has returned, only in reverse. The city is not emptying out. On the contrary, it’s as if it’s even more crowded than usual, and if you ask people why they didn't go on vacation, they’ll tell you that “the best place to vacation is Naples!”
The fact is that it is August, but in my neighborhood and in my building, it looks like any other month.
The old lady that listens to the Rosary at 7 o'clock, the comings and goings of Sri Lankans, the prayers of the Algerian women, and my neighbors' quarrels.
Because if the soccer championship is over, then it is the turn of the Olympics.
This morning I heard the lady upstairs tell her husband:
“Vicié, hurry up, we need to go to the sea!”
“Nooo! I have to watch foil, rowing and even badminton today!”
“And what the f*ck is this badminton, now?”
“I don’t know! But I watch everything. You like to say ‘You men are ignorant, you only think about soccer’. So now, go to the beach on your own, so I can stay home and get cultured.”
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