2. Cuddle with Massimo

Transcript

Hello, stranger. It's me again. Did you really think I wouldn't be here? Surely you know I'd do anything for you, go anywhere with you.

How are you? Rough day? Let me fix that for you, gorgeous.

Yes, take my hand and come with me. You're safe here. Now, lie on your back and shut your eyes.

Shhh. Don't say a word. Just relax.

Sink into the sheets, relax into the cushions. Just be. I'm going to sit beside you and stroke your hair, just like this.

Now, I'll whisper a story softly in your ear, just like I always do. Take a long, deep breath, pretty girl, and exhale. One more time, long and deep, and exhale.

Now it's all gone. You're almost weightless. There's only us.

All you have to do is be and listen. Let me take you far away from here. Far, far away.

This is the story of a very ordinary girl. Isn't it wonderful how extraordinary ordinary things are when you really stop to look at them, peer at them, hold them in your hands, taste them, feel them, really feel them? Like the breaking of the tide against your feet, the way it wraps itself around your heels, holds them for a moment, drinks its fill, and then returns home.

Or the way twilight turns to dawn, the rising of the warm morning sun, gently creeping up your bare shoulders, dripping down the small of your back, tugging at your fingertips, before slowly stealing across your face and washing over you. And then you're in it. A thousand golden drops of morning sun, every ray a kiss.

It's a special thing, the sunrise. And yet, it's ordinary. Oh, so ordinary.

It's only sunrise, after all. Terribly ordinary. In that extraordinary way.

That's the way she was. Ordinary. Not ordinary like a piece of old cardboard or an old wooden spoon.

Ordinary like the sunrise. She lived in a quaint old house with windows that opened outwards and old-fashioned windowsills for potted plants and birds to perch on. Her parents were of less than modest means, but she wouldn't know it to look at her.

She had a glimmer in her eye, a dreamer's eye, her mother said, and she was right. She loved to dance, and sing, and run. If she could fly, she would have done, but most of all, she loved to dream.

She dreamed wide awake and lived while she dreamed. And that was how she knew that something grand was coming. It was the dreaming.

That was the thing. That's how she knew. You could see it in her face.

She loved to laugh. Even in the bleaker sadness, one could always make out the beginnings of a smile pressing at the corners of her mouth. When it rained, she would go out and dance beneath the naked sky, laughing between pirouettes, until she'd soaked herself right through and Mother called for her to come inside.

The rain didn't matter. It was only water, after all. The future was beautiful.

And she knew it. That was the thing. She knew.

She was twenty the year she went away. I'm going to be a singer, she said. I'm going to be famous, Mama.

Her mother did not bat an eyelid. She knew that it was true. She was her mother, after all.

She knew all about her child. The girl had a way of drawing you in. Everywhere she went, the people stared.

It wasn't just because she was beautiful. And she was. Just like you, pretty girl.

No, it wasn't only that. It was an aura, a presence, something nondescript. She had a way about her.

She seemed to glide, to float through life, to brave the elements, to dance in the rain defiantly, like a goddess. Her father kissed his little girl on her forehead, and her mother held her in her arms and spoke a blessing. Then, excitedly, she was off.

Off to conquer worlds unknown, to see it all and make it hers. She arrived in the city at sundown that day, and started life all over again. Eager and alive.

And it was wonderful. The city was a living, breathing thing. The lights flashed in her eyes.

The cars whizzed by. Nothing ever stopped for long. The girls wore bright-colored dresses and sophisticated fragrances.

And the men, oh, the men. They adored her. They told her how gorgeous she was, endlessly and without fear.

She made new friends and found new favorite places. She went out to parties and dinners and plays and concerts. New bonds were cemented.

New friendships were forged. Pretty soon, she owned the city. Every inch of it was hers.

It was her playground, her plaything, a piece of string to toy with. She met an artist manager who got her a lucrative deal with a massive record company. And soon enough, her name was on everyone's lips.

Actors and actresses, directors and politicians, little girls in playgrounds and teenage boys in high school classrooms. Her face was plastered on billboards and buses, in magazines and on TV screens. People wanted to be near her.

People wanted to be her. She was a star, just like she said. Her parents were overtaken with glowing pride in their daughter.

She bought them a house in a prestigious estate. She was the apple of her little town's eye, their very own success story, their goddess. But they were only partly right.

She was everyone's goddess now. One day, years later, she stood in front of her bedroom mirror and thought to herself, life's been kind. Today, I should celebrate.

So, she got dressed and went outside. It was an early, peaceful morning. The calmest kind of morning.

One could still smell the newly formed dew on blades of greener's grass. One could hear distant birds call out to each other in the silence of the day. If you were there, my darling, you would only have to close your eyes and breathe in slow and deep.

Slow and oh so deep. And as you exhaled through those precious lips, you'd hear the sound of distant rustling leaves, a gardener aching. And then you'd hear mixed laughter, high-pitched and innocent, charming and uninhibited, children playing.

If you breathed in slow one more time, perhaps, and then exhaled, there'd be a chance that you would catch the whirring sound of a single dragonfly passing by you. If you took a step forward, the morning mist would embrace you and run its fingers through your hair, a gentle breeze. If you were there.

The girl shut the door behind her and started for the beach. It was only just light out. There was still time to catch some sunrise.

That's how she would celebrate today. She would stand in the water and let the waves wash against her shins. She would stretch out her arms and smile at the sky, and wait.

Wait for the sun to steal across her face, tug at her fingertips, caress the corners of her smiling mouth. She would pirouette right there in the sand. She would wrap her arms around herself and sway, make love to the morning.

She would laugh into the sunrise, that ordinary sunrise, and whisper softly, thank you. And then she'd dance, just like always. And now, it's time to shut your busy eyes and dance into dreamland.

Grow lighter now, and float away. Fade into the bliss. I'll stroke your hair and watch you.

Like I always do. I'm here. You're safe.

Glide away like the goddess you are, and don't ever change. Goodnight, you. Dream away.