Chapter 2. -- Visione

Chapter 2. Visione

Visione Valley is named after the Lake Visione, which split the Main Street into Upper Eyeline and Lower Eyeline, and merged back on the other end. Behind each of the tar-black eye line there revealed the eyelids formed by the hills, where the seasons routinely replaced the colorful shadows. The Lake was claimed to be firstly discovered by an Italian explorer, right before the ever-local aboriginal tribe migrated into the deep mountains. But it was in the late eighty's when Visione became temporarily well-known. In the summer of 1987, when I was 11, a large group of victims sued a fake monk who claimed to be able to read the ripples out of the Lake Visione to predict the horse race winner. It started when a luxury car drove by the Lake in one sunny afternoon. When the car pulled over, Katerina and I were ready to start our bicycle exploration. From the winding down car window a man wearing sunglasses and in shiny gray suit asked us where he was.

"Visione, Sir!" I replied him and thought, it must be a "Catillarc".
"Visione, Visione, I see...." the man mumbled and then the car left in a speed of deep thinking.

I turned to Katerina, "It must be your first time to see a 'Catillarc'".
"Catillarc?"
"Catillarc! The car!...Girls...."

A week later, in the middle of our bike trip we saw a bus parked beside the Upper Eyeline, and a group of people were streaming down to the shore. It was Katerina who recognized the leader as the "Catillarc man", despite I had disagreed. It wasn't my fault, because "Catillarc man" was now in brown gown with a book in hand, just the sunglasses positioned the same.

We couldn't help riding down to look closer. Among the crew in diverse Hawaiian shirts the "Catillarc man" stepped forward with a bible in left hand. And a green coconut in the right, that was new! As soon as we parked our bikes, "Mr. Catillarc" began his murmuring. Katerina and I were a little thrilled because we had never seen a magician in person. Out of a sudden a coconut was thrown forward high into the air. I held my breath and traced the parabola as the rest of the crew, kept waiting because the coconut didn't splash a lot and no wet teeth in big mouth breaking out the water, and kept staring because the coconut might explode in few seconds. On the water, A duck couple elegantly approached the green object without minding the ripples trying to push them away. People started to murmur wondering if "it still counts?". I was startled while concentrating on the drifting coconut when "Mr. Catillarc" shout:
"I see!"

Short, but efficient enough to shut up all the others.

When I turned my head I saw "Mr. Catillarc" freeze with a pose, raising both hands.
"I didn't see anything." I told Katerina.
"It must be the glasses".

Another man came out to collect the money from the crew and "Mr. Catillarc" started to draw some number alike symbols on the sand. People all stepped forward as if a foot ball scrimmage down began. I was stopped by the money collector – "Leave, kids. You didn't pay!"

When we rode back by the bus I stopped and shouted to the cults.

"Sir! Where is your Catillarc?" I really had to ask.

For the whole week, day and night, the buses came and left. We didn't approach them any more for they did no magic but the same routines. But Katerina and I loved it so much to imitate the dramatic gesture. Thereafter whenever meeting each other we always raised our hands and shouted "I see!". After the TV news revealed the fraud, those gestures became even more popular not only among the kids. When Mr. Du delivered the mails, he had to return not a few the raising-hands "I see!", though he didn't fully stretch his arms while muttering reluctantly "I see I see."

Visione didn't ripple too long. And the raising-both-hands game faded and became private as a secret bridge between only Katerina and me. When the "eye shadow" turned to orange red and dyed the "eye rim", the town came to peace and was again forgotten by the rest of the world. The rest of the world had left nothing but some of those drifted coconuts, which later settled on the shore and grew into the green eyelashes of Visione.