The sunny little town on the coast was, in a way, dead. Terracotta houses with balconies stacked atop each other with ivy vines crawling up them. Shrieking goats tied to small wood poles, soon to be butchered if not infected with diseases. Bicycles sitting all around it. There was a waterless fountain in the center, gardens supposed to be growing tomatoes and peppers for sauces, grapes for wine. Tiny shops and markets with no freshly caught fish, no peaches in the summer. It was laced by the grey ocean, surrounded by green mountains. It previously smelled of sea salt, pasta, sometimes cinnamon. The people mostly had dark curls and eyes, suntanned fair skin. Once they were plump, with round stomachs and faces. Now they were bone-jutting thin. At the very end of the village, there was a stone wall that went for miles to divide the people from the royals. This was a place of many things. Once its heart was a place of food.
Unfortunately they were suffering from a terrible shortage of that very thing.
Their king was a greedy one, taxing them too much and spending the country’s money too lavishly. Elio remembered his mama’s gasp as soldiers had sauntered into her kitchen and demanded a meal. He had been starving, but he hadn’t gotten the food he needed until the next morning. Like today. Things were worse, and he hadn’t gotten anything for…he didn’t know how long. He had been chewing the ivy just to stay calm. He was checking for eggs in the chicken coop, [a girls’ job, but his sister was married now] knowing perfectly well there wouldn’t be eggs. There never was, they couldn’t afford to feed the chickens.
So he was very surprised when he did indeed find one. He grabbed it gently, and ran home shouting, “Mama! Mama! Mama!”
“Yes?” His mother, Fabiana, called from her empty kitchen.
“There was an egg from the chickens! Should we eat it now?”
“Oh, Elio, diletto,” Fabiana ran over, tears glazing her brown eyes. She grabbed her son in her arms. “I wish you didn’t live in a world where one single egg was exciting.” She wiped her eyes and said in a different voice, “I’d like to eat it now, but we shouldn’t be rash. Today, I’d like you to try and sell it. For more food. But if you cannot, we will cook it when your father comes home from work.”
“Okay, Mama.”
“Go take your bicycle door-to-door now, Eli.”
“Okay, Mama.”
“Be safe!” She called out the door as he ran out.
“Okay, Mama.” Elio hopped onto his bicycle and sped across the street. His bicycle was faded light green, rusting. He got it when times were better, when he was
three. The tenement across the street was small, with a doorbell falling off its wall. Elio tapped it lightly.
A tired old woman opened the door. “Hmm?”
She looked down and saw who it was. Elio was a jittery boy of seven, with untamed dark hair, big dog-like eyes, a face red and shiny from the sun. She knew him as the child who delivered his mother’s sewing, quick with his humorous conversations.
“Ciao, Miss.”
“How can I help you, Elio?” The old woman smiled.
“Our chickens gave us an egg! I’m going around trying to sell it. If you’d like it, tell me how much you’ll pay, and if yours is the highest bid at the end, I’ll sell it to you.”
“Oh! I’d give you everything I have right now. Fifty lira.”
Elio’s eyes widened. “Thank you, miss. Anyone else inside?”
“No, they’re at the fontana. See you soon.”
“Ciao!” He called and rode to the next house.
As you’d think, everyone wanted the egg. Mr. Giovanni at the empty fish shop. Anna three doors down. The women at the fountain. The bids went from the one lira the poor offered, to one-hundred lira from the middle class. Then Elio got to the huge mansions closer to the stone wall.
First he stopped at a huge red doorway. A man with clean clothes opened it.
“Ciao, my name is Elio, and I’m selling a chicken egg. Would you like to place a bid?” He asked.
“Is the egg spoiled?” The man inquired.
“No.”
“That is incredible. I’ll place ten-thousand lira,” The man tipped his head.
“Wow! Really? Why don’t you just buy more eggs from someone who has them?”
“No one does, son. No one does. The king has taken what’s found.”
“Well, thank you for your time, sir.” Elio hopped onto his bike, discouraged. If a wealthy man like that one was hungry, what would money do to fix his problems?
Mansion after mansion, the bids went higher, higher, higher. And yet, all of them were starving. It really made Elio think. At one mansion, a girl from school, Bella, had opened the door. He hadn’t known she lived in his town, since he was poor and she certainly wasn’t. Her family placed a very high bid, and Elio asked her if she was suffering from the shortage.
“Of course I am!” She’d been offended. “I can’t believe you would ask such a thing!”
“Even though you are ricca?”
“Yes. There’s no food to buy, Papa says.”
“Oh. Well, ciao.” He’d left confused.
Finally Elio reached the last mansion, which was built right next to the stone wall. He lightly tapped the doorbell.
The door swung open, revealing a woman with light eyes, light hair, and a huge ruby necklace.
“Hello, I’m Audrey,” She said, a strange accent slanting her words.
“What a strange name.”
“Yes, well, I’m from far away. This is my holiday home.” Audrey looked up at the orange sky.
“I’m Elio, and I’m selling a chicken egg. Would you like to offer anything?”
“Perhaps.” Audrey called for a man named John, who came to the door in even stranger black and white clothing.
“Ciao.” Elio chimed.
“This small boy is selling a chicken egg,” Audrey explained. “Which is marvelous, since we haven’t been able to find food around here. How much should we bid?”
“One-hundred thousand-lira.” John said decisively.
One-hundred-thousand lira. The words echoed through Elio’s head. His family would be ricco. And yet…“You two struggle to find food with all that money?”
“Oh, yes,” Audrey laughed. “It’s lucky we don’t live here!”
And with that their door slammed in his face.
Elio steadied himself on his bicycle. He sped to his door, jumped off the bicycle, and ran to his mother.
“Mama,” he said, heavily breathing. “I have learned so many things today.”
“Your father will be home soon. Sit down and tell me everything.”
So he talked about all the bids, the highest to the lowest, the ricco and the poor, and how all of them wanted the egg. All of them were hungry. No matter how much lira they had. So he thought they should just eat the egg. Because it was the only food they had besides ivy and turnips. He talked about what he learned about the King taking all of their food. He mentioned Bella, and strange Audrey and John from far away.
“You certainly did learn a lot.” Fabiana patted his head.
“So do you want to get the lira or the egg?”
“The egg. Quickly, ride to Audrey and John’s house and tell them our decision, since they would’ve gotten it otherwise.” Fabiana smiled. “I never thought in a million years we’d be the lucky ones.”
“Oh, Mama.” Elio said as he walked out the door, onto his bicycle. “These days no one is the lucky ones.”
~
Fabiana heard the knock on the door. She stood and opened it, expecting it to be Elio, who was a little bit late. Fabiana would’ve started dinner, but Elio had accidentally taken the egg with him, in his pocket. So she’d just swept the tile and dusted the terracotta.
“Fabiana, come to the stone wall, quickly!” The old lady from across the street was at the door, speaking in an urgent tone.
“I can’t, neither my husband nor my son is hom-” Fabiana began.
“It’s Elio, come on, we must go now!”
“Elio? Coming,” Fabiana began to run. “What happened?”
“I’ll explain as we go.” The old lady began to run with her, surprisingly fast for her age. “I waved to Elio as he was going across town, because I was at the fabric shop. He told me he was going to go tell the person who would’ve won that you decided to keep the egg. I don’t blame you.” They passed Mr. Giovanni’s empty fish shop. “And I noticed people were beginning to follow him. Everyone he’d passed so far. I tried to warn Elio. He didn’t hear me.” They passed Anna’s house, three doors down from Mr. Giovanni. “So I began to follow him too. He never heard me. The more houses he passed, the more people began to follow.” They passed the fontana. “Even the richest of them, chasing after him.” They passed more tenements, and the old woman began to cry. “They were so hungry, so weak. They began to throw stones.” Fabiana also began to cry. “Even a few bricks. He just barely reached John’s mansion, but he couldn’t stop. It was so loud Audrey and John came outside. They saw what was happening, and tried to protect him. John got hit in the eye and they couldn’t anymore. So Elio began to climb the wall. Higher, higher, all the while protecting the egg. They never stopped throwing. He was alright, but that wall’s very high u-” The old woman stopped talking. Fabiana began to sob. They’d reached the stone wall. At the bottom was her sweet, humorous young son, eyes shut. At the top was the egg, perfectly unharmed. People were climbing the wall, shaking it, desperately trying to get food. Most of them slipped on the blood.
Fabiana fell to the ground, sobbing, broken. The old woman joined her. The world was so loud at that moment, the crying, the screaming, the stones. So loud that the King’s carriage rolled to a stop in front of the wall. His guards climbed the stone, causing the egg to splatter.
Fabiana looked up. Some very desperate people were licking the raw egg and blood off the wall. The guards were examining the situation, trying to figure out what had happened. The King shouted for the wall to be pulled down so he could see. The guards on the other side got it down quickly. It fell with a thunderous BOOM. Huge horses, more guards, and a carriage rode to the edge of the wall. The King stepped out of the carriage, almost right onto Elio’s limp body.
“WHAT IS GOING ON?” The King shouted over everyone. The crowd fell silent. Some even bowed.
Fabiana was the first to say anything. She felt all her loss, all her grief, her hunger, her rage, heard Elio’s last words. Oh, Mama. These days, no one is the lucky ones. How sad. How true. “You stoned my seven-year-old son, and not the man who caused your starvation?!” She pointed to The King, as her lungs stung from how loud she screamed. The moment she’d said it, the stones flew towards all The King’s horses and all The King’s men. The King himself was the last to fall.
~
Bella watched her school come into view out the train window. The summer sun was rising. She’d return home in the fall. Just the word fall was enough to remind her of the blood. How her stomach had rumbled as she went to sleep at night. But that was in the past now.
“Ciao,” Bella’s friend, Alessia, said. She was from another town. “Our village didn’t get enough crops from harvest, so my meals have been really small.”
“I can only imagine.”
“I pray to Santo Elio every night now. Did you know he’s the reason the monarchy fell, and why we’re never starving?”
“Oh, yes.” Bella watched the sun enter the sky. How old had Elio been? Seven? How would she die? Would her death change anything at all? Not like Elio’s would. No one would paint portraits of her in chapels, or say prayers to her as they ate a meal. And she supposed she was fine with that. She’d die peacefully. “I’ve known that for a long time.”
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