What kind of story is this? What’s the link between souls and anchovies, and a whole school of them?! Welcome in afterlife, where souls and anchovies live peacefully together. Be ready to be surprised, though: afterlife might not be just as you expect: everything is light. And it’s called “life now”. Via Cusani, Milan: Achille has just woken up in his place in Milan, and he’s talking to an illustrious deceased, field marshal Radetzky, who lived in that house – of all places! – in the good (for him) old times of the Austrian occupation. The diverse souls who happen to be nearby – but also elsewhere, far or near – join the conversation too and we find ourselves in an afterworld that is very close to our world. So close, that Radetzky, from his vantage point, has renamed it “life now”.
Achille’s soul has moved to a garage in Piazza San Marco, to his son’s friends’ Porsche, where even his cat Ely has long decided to settle. From that moment, encounters, stories, conversations become more and more frequent and, of course, surreal… The stories we find are not only those of Umberto Eco, Andy Warhol, Karl Marx, Woody Allen, Elio Fiorucci or Marshal Radetzky: they are also stories of other souls, normal souls, who only go by their name: Marco, or Lucrezia. Don’t be afraid: the conversations are always ironical, comical at times,
even exhilarating. We travel “through” the souls from Dahomey (former name of present
Benin) to the Frankfurt Book Fair, from the Sahara Desert to wedding parties in Buenos Aires. We laugh, hoping that “life now” will be just like that, just as fun, just as varied, with its mysteries so clear. “Life now” is also full of animals flying around, all with a soul. And, of course, it’s full of anchovies, swimming in enormous schools and literally transporting other souls, human souls.