Chapter 9 Final Curiosities

Here's our final chunk of curiosities related to chapter 9.
I know the structure of this chapter left some of you puzzled... but one of the reasons why it is called "midsummer night dream" is that most of it won't make sense now... but it will later.
Think of it as a pond... I threw a pebble in it... wait for the ripples to spread across the surface and when they are gone you'll see a different reflection in the water.

In this chapter a certain amount of things happen and they feel unreal... Lio does not catch Foxy's love confession... Pifo doesn't catch Quoque's, Castalia doesn't realize Kane is confessing too... and there are also many epiphanies.

Kane has an actual dream... like all dreams it has weird colors! Or better yet... they feel like they are in color but they might be in black and white and our brain tricks us to believe that things are colored. Can we really be sure that what we see is what we see in dreams? Because most of the times things make so much sense when you dream them and then you wake up and think: that was wacko!
Places feel like actual places but they are not and you are actor and spectator at the same time. This is one of those dreams where you see bridges and water... A bridge is always there when we are not certain about our future. Some people manage to cross the bridge in their dreams, because they are not scared of their future but a lot of people, all of sudden, find themselves in the water and in the water they have to deal with their fears.
I often find sharks in my water - it's linked to how angry I am about stuff, usually.

Kane finds some kind of mermaid or fairy who looks very much like Castalia and pulls him through his dream.

For a second his mind gets sucked into the past... probably trying to figure why and where everything begun.

But if he tells his doctor that he has too look at his future not at his past... then he has to believe his own words... hence his subconscious suggest: let's not go there. Let's move ahead.

What happens next is one of those dreams were things seem to make sense but they don't. The tense of the verbs and time is not quite here and now, nor there and then, not in the future either. But apparently Kane has a peaceful place where he goes at night and that is Badia and his grandpa's house. He keeps re-living a certain night, the night the only guidance in his life left him to deal with crap all by himself... and he cannot let him go. So even though the grandpa is dead he keeps going back to him and asks him questions.

Only this time, sinking in the water with the mermaid/fairy, he saw Castalia so he is there to break free and say: I will disobey, I will trust someone.
Now, remember that grandpa Cosimo is the one who left a scar on Kane's back to remind him he should never turn his back on anyone...

Clearly the boy took his word literally, and the scar helps him remember too, but he did not figure out one thing: if his grandpa died of old age, in his bed... it's because he trusted someone, he trusted Kane.

In this dream trust transitions from grandpa to Castalia. Kane is a sailor, after all, he just picked a new Polar Star. He needs something steady and unchanging to pick a direction and follow it. His grandfather was that something... until Castalia shows up and he can finally move ahead, out of that place of jaded emotions that kept him away from free choices and serene sleep.

Definitely his heart is the first thing to show him he is still alive and human.

The dream seals the deal.
The next thing to come back to life is his body.

It's as if the heart had started pumping blood back into a system that had belonged to a golem, doing things because that's who he was and had no choice but being who he was.



Now for Kane has come a time where he can stop telling people how to live their lives and get to live his own.

So he sings. Even though he said he could not. He sings and does not care. He sings.
Sorry, the song is something I made up, not an actual Neapolitan song.

I can finally answer some of the questions I could not talk about in the famous "crappy post". Sometimes I wish I could answer to your questions but if I do I give the story away and that's a major spoiler.
So you have to be patient and wait for the story to unfold and trust the story...
The question was: do they wipe after they poop?
I said "no" back then.
But the answer is: no, they use stones or wash.
Three stones or stones in odd number because there are Muslims on board of Kane's ship.
The habit of washing after going to the toilet (using a bidet - that Wikipedia says to be very common in France but I never saw one when I was living there... in fact most Italians have a mystical crisis when they go abroad and cannot find a bidet because we do wipe and wash, wipe alone is not enough...) most likely comes from the sharia which says that you must wash your anus after pooping or use stones. (and I made this veeeery simple but let's just leave it a that)

Is Kane Foxy's new dad? XDDD
No.
No matter what the boy still has a stronger attachment to the doctor.
He spent most of his time in sick bay talking to him and getting cured with fake medicines, before Lio showed up... and hence, sorry Wes, you are still the daddy.

But kids have to go their ways and the doc will do anything to have him cured.
Keep on trying Wes!


What is Kane doing with his hand? He is saying "3"!
Counting with fingers is very different around the World... take the Chinese way to count with fingers... in Singapore what they use for 7 it's a 5.

This is how you count in Japan.

In Italy you use the thumb, index and medium to say "3". When my mom went to New York the first time... she ordered 3 coffees for 5 days and always got 2 because the tender could not see and count her thumb. On the 6th day she saw someone else using index, middle and ring finger and finally figured out: in the U.s. they count differently.

It's kind of nice to look at it too... as I imagine Amil to be the cute, little, chubby thumb under two big brothers.

So did you figure out why he shouted: "you bad brother" to Josh... and why he said that Kane had a brother that could be Pifo's interest "if you like the type"? He wasn't really pushing his beloved in his big brother's arms! He was trying to figure out a way to confess. Amil is very shy and also... not very good at communications as the language barrier is still pretty big for him.

And... does it finally make sense why Kane has 15 year old boy (going on 16 XDD) as a cook? A cook on Balthasar's ship is someone you must trust with your own life. Blood brothers are cool but your little brother is better XDDD.

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as for the order of the events: here goes the Memento cut.

Pifo vs Josh
Pifo is kissed straight
Pifo and Quoque
Pifo gets confused and Rose cannot help
Foxy visits Lio
Pifo begins distributing corn
Kane and Castalia's first conversation
Pifo gives corn to the doc
Wes and Kes dinner
Josh and Kane's conversation
Pifo gives corn to Castalia
Cat and Calista's grapnel adventure
Pifo gives corn to Cat and Callista
Kane confesses to Castalia
Lio and Foxy do stuff and Foxy confesses his love
The doctor in Hell
Cassandra searches the room and read the journal
Castalia wakes up but Kane doesn't
Kane has a dream and is awakened by Giovannino
Lio and Foxy return on the Alidivento
Cat, Foxy and Wes go pee
Kane shows up
Pifo is still in trance
Wes and Kane talk to Pifo
Pifo is kissed gay again
Pifo starts the morning gymnastics
Pea returns, Callista cries
The pirates get ready
Cat talks to Callista (so page 35 is the last one in chronological order).

Why Deda? Because it can be done...

I am still fixing stuff in this chapter - my work is keeping me away from life (I have started this post about 6 hours ago) and some things work better in the Italian version because of the existence of a certain verb called Imperfetto that helps keeping time transition a bit more blurry... (I am changing both versions to a more definitive time-line keeping the Inception b.s. to the minimum XDD)

Isn't that the best? You can write stories on post-its and move the post-its around :D
It's fun!
That and... I'm an evil pirate!