i would like to share an excerpt of a poem by Helma Maessen that in part inspired this work:
“Un cielo di marmo lucente / Una pista di ghiaccio nel cielo di marmo lucente / macchie scure la rasentano a gran velocità / punti minuscoli / tracciano con le lame dei pattini solchi nel ghiaccio che si arriccia / La vita sottosopra”*.
“A sky of lucent marble/ An ice rink in the sky of lucent marble / dark spots skim it at great speed / tiny dots / the blades of their skates trace grooves in the curly ice shavings / Life is upsidedown”*.

The ice skater is a clear homage to Anna Politkovskaya. She enters the stage with words of the hedgehog man from my story: “Now you are all wings, all of you… you reappear in the guise of an ice skater. You skate flying, with arms and legs spread out. With two fingers making the shape of a V, you engrave in the sky a jagged line of light”.

The narrator continues: “On your forehead there is an ambiguous circle: a homicidal bullet hole or the mark of your third eye? With the blades of your skates you continue to engrave truth. You stand out like a shooting star that twinkles in the slate-colored sky. The ice wears thin and in order to continue to skate you are forced to go at great speed”.