Espresso Amore

***Espresso Amore***
(#StorytellingSalemStory #1,000,000(!!!) out of 1mil:)

~So I’ve been travelling across the country—
town to town/city to city/State to State;
sitting down in random locations—
across this Nation— with a whiteboard in my haaand;
I’ve been asking pplllll:

“What’s Yor Story?”~

But this time, when I was out in Naples, Italy—off a narrow side street where scooters dart like dragonflies & laundry sways from balcony to balcony like flags of a hidden republic. The sky smelled like tomato, strong coffee, and the distant memory of a summer that never really leaves.

A man in his fifties, short, stocky, wearing a navy tracksuit and holdin’ an espresso in a plastic cup, stopped on by.
He didn’t sit. Just stood in front of the whiteboard, reading it like it owed him money.
Then he grinned—one side only—and began sharin’:

⸻

“Ah, listen—this one, you gonna like, eh?

I used to race scooters. Not like, official, no no. Street racing.
Down the hills,
through the alleys,
no brakes,
mamma mia—stupido, but bello.

There was this girl,
Giulia.
Every guy wanted her. Nobody had the guts.
But me? I bet her a ride—if I win, you come with me to Posillipo for sunset.
She laugh, say, ‘Va bene, but only if you don’t crash.’
I won. Didn’t crash. Almost did—twice—but that’s amore, no?
We stayed together ten years.

Opened a little pizzeria near Spaccanapoli.
She made the dough. I made the fire.
It worked.

Then she got sick.
Real quick.
Pancreas.
Doctor said sei mesi, six months. She lasted five. But in the fourth, we drove up to Posillipo again.

Same scooter. Same sunset. She told me:
‘Don’t be sad forever. Just be sad until the espresso goes cold. Then live, capisci?’

Now I serve pizza to tourists who don’t eat the crust and still call it the best ever. And every night I ride that old scooter—doesn’t go fast anymore, but it still remembers.

Like yours truly.”

⸻

He downed the espresso in one gulp,
tapped the side of the cup like it had told him a secret,
and tossed it perfectly into a bin across the street.
Then walked off like he had dough rising somewhere that couldn’t wait.

~& iii??
I stayed leaning against a chipped stone wall,
whiteboard by my side, still asking:
“What’s Yor Story?”
Waiting for the next person to stop on byyy~~

*******