Malena (Fan-Fiction)

A CIA officer takes a vacation to Sicily where he hasn't been since he was a young boy and remembers his magical encounter with a beautiful Italian woman named Malena.

Here's a much more enchanting story to sign off with, a fan-fiction inspired by the unusually stirring movie Malena (Monica Bellucci), which invites us to ask the basic question, "Is reality more 'depressing' than fantasy?"

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My name's Isaac. I'm a CIA operative working in the Belfast (Northern Ireland) underground, bridging Sinn Fein and Parliament initiatives to reduce Protestant-Catholic divisions in the United Kingdom that are separating the two world's dominant denominations in the Christian community. I work with various P-IRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) problems related to rogue terrorism directed at civilian targets and frustration-induced retaliatory British police violence in Belfast. However, I'm now on vacation and traveling to Sicily (Italy) where I haven't traveled since I was a young boy, when my mother took me there for a summer vacation. I'm reflecting in Sicily on a memory of an incredibly beautiful Italian woman I encountered when I was a young boy, a village-girl named Malena, whom I never forgot. It's given me reason to be quite pensive about my childhood all of a sudden, and I'm wondering if I'm more of a poet than an officer!

I took an Alitala flight from JFK (NY) to Rome (Italy) before hopping over to Sicily. The Alitalia flight was very comfortable, and the flight-attendants (stewardesses) were all quite charming and lovely. I'm remembering my days as a young boy in Sicily, when I first encountered the stunningly beautiful Italian woman Malena. Now, I have to wonder if Malena is still somewhere in Sicily, because I can't help think of her while re-encountering all the charms and colors of the Italian people during my welcomed vacation from the CIA!

Sicily (Italy) is a thing and place to really behold. If you've seen the pictures or travel videos by Rick Steves, you know what I'm referencing here. Sicily is not just about pizza and soccer or even mafia ages; it's also about the natural life of small-town values and bucolic communities. The coastal areas by the water are breathtaking and reinvigorate one's sense of joy-of-life. This is a place not to be missed by anyone with any sort of Wanderlust. I find myself in Sicily for the first time since I was 10 years-old, when I was there with my departed mother, and I was involved in a kids' world-theater performance group that summer, enjoying virtually everything Sicily had to offer the human spirit.

Sicilian people are proud and distinct. They believe in the social life of conversation and prayer and good food of course. The pizza here is of course superior, but it's not just about pizza. There's all kinds of food in Sicily and even the fish is not to be missed. I'm walking down the street of Sicily and notice the symbolic old men who sit on the streets and chat and sing and watch people go by and wonder where they're going. I'm remembering Malena.

Times have changed. The world is more capital...and political. However, there's still images of kids playing street-soccer and boys on bicycles and girls playing with flowers. There's something equally cliched and comforting about the Sicilian imagination. That's why I'm thrilled to return here after so many years for my vacation from CIA work!

My CIA work related to P-IRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) troubles is no joke. It requires all kinds of emotional and spiritual strength. While Sinn Fein works with P-IRA terrorists to reign in the violence and forge more political negotiations with Parliament, incidents of rogue terrorism and retaliatory police violence keep the Protestant and Catholic communities apart. Because of the petroleum-politics of Israel-Palestine, world leaders have ignored the Protestant-Catholic rift in Northern Ireland that have driven a stake in the heart of the modern Christian global community. However, my work with the CIA in Belfast demands a continuous focus on the serious human problems created mostly by socioeconomic disparities between the Irish Catholic minority and British Protestant majority. This is real modern political work.

Howver, I'm not concerned about these 'troubles' right now, because I can't help savoring all the Sicilian food and walking down the fantastic Sicilian street-market on Sundays. This is what a CIA officer should do if he needs a real vacation --- go to Sicily! I'm walking and taking photos with my handy-dandy iPhone camera of the brilliant colors and smells of the Sicilian market. I'm remembering Malena...again!

When I was a boy, traveling to Sicily that summer with my mother, I was involved in that world-theater performance group in Sicily. We put on a play about a failed kingdom, and I was portraying the ruly and austere monarch, King Raj. It is at this play that the beautiful Malena first took notice of me. After the performance, she ran up to me and my mother and kissed me on the cheek and congratulated me for my excellent portrayal of the austere King Raj. My mother thanked Malena and I was hypnotized by her beauty and grateful my well-honed performance as a young actor really did impress her!

Malena is everything a boy would want. She's larger-than-life yet slender in demeanor. She has long flowing hair and deep eyes and a wry but gentle smile. She reminds me what makes Sicily so darn welcoming and mysterious simultaneously. That summer, I'd spend time secretly following Malena around. She was a seamstress in the Sicilian village near where my mother and I were staying. I'd peek in her small cottage window in her shop and watch her work and sew. Sometimes, I'd daydream she'd turn to me and give that same smile she gave me after my world-theater performance.

Now, years later, wearied by the 'real world politics' of IRA-Parliament hellfire in the UK, I can't help but wander around Sicily (Italy) as a grown man, desperately seeking Malena again. I wonder if she's somewhere just around the corner, behind the veil of some other now-young beautiful Italian woman who happens to be shopping at the Sicilian street-market. Malena's face is everywhere to me now in Sicily (Italy). I know she's an older woman now, but I can't help feel fascinated by the idea that I just might cross paths with her again. Would she be impressed now that I'm a CIA officer and not a young thespian?

If I never see Malena again, I'll wonder if she married and married well. Did her husband join the Italian army and was sent to some foreign post, leaving her behind in Sicily to wait for him? I have to wonder what Malena looks like now, now that she's certainly much older! I wonder what she'll think if I told her I'm a CIA officer in the UK now. I wonder if we'll rekindle that momentary 'magic' I found with her when I was a young boy, traveling to Sicily with my departed mother. I wonder if the real world truly is as diabolical as they say.

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)