Marolla - Black Tea and Other Tales

Samuel Marolla

Black Tea

and other tales

Acheron Books n.1

Publishing Director: Adriano Barone

ISBN epub: 9788899216009

ISBN mobi: 9788899216016

Italian editing by Adriano Barone

Translation from Italian by Andrew Tanzi

English editing by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

Cover by Diramazioni.it

Introduction by Gene ONeill

Ebook Publishing by Matteo Poropat

Copyright Black Tea and other Stories 2014 Acheron Books

Copyright A box of lovely dark chocolates (Introduction) 2013 Gene ONeill

All rights reserved

Acheron Books www.acheronbooks.com

Samuel Marolla was born and lives in Milan (Italy). Hes a genre writer and a businessman.

His genre stories (both fiction and comics) are published by several Italian publishers.

In 2014 he founded the digital publishing company Acheron Books, in order to broadcast the Italian genre fiction worldwide.

His website is www.samuelmarolla.com .

Acheron Books

Website: www.acheronbooks.com

Introduction

by Gene ONeill

I usually shudder when a friend recommends an unfamiliar writer to me to read. For a couple of personal reasons. I already have a TBR stack that totters upward clear to the ceiling. But perhaps more important, approaching a book by an unknown writer is indeed like opening a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.

But when the recommendation includes a request for an introduction, the unsettled feeling has an added dimension. Because in this day of so much self-published work, unedited on the internet, its more than just possible that this particular box of recommended chocolates might not contain all the best and freshest ingredients. The candy maker perhaps not even a journeyman. Id never read or even heard of Mr. Samuel Marolla.

So it was with some trepidation that I began the first story, Black Tea, in Mr. Marollas collection. Only a few minutes into the first story, I realized my fears were without merit. The candy maker was indeed skilled, more than a journey man, perhaps even a master craftsman.

Mr. Marollas prose is richly textured, sensory details concretely described. In fact, at some point near the end of the three long stories, I realized the literary quality reminded me quite a bit of the American writer, Thomas Ligotti. But sometimes a Ligotti story can be so dense and convoluted, it is difficult to access. Also another quibble is that a Ligotti story is often short on plot, focused mostly on voice, tone, and mood.

These stories by Mr. Marolla are completely accessible and definitely have intriguing plots. So after finishing the last story, I decided that Mr. Marolla shared a characteristic with one of my favorite writers, Ted Klein. Mr. Klein often uses a slow buildup, rich in sensory detail, the plot slowly evolving. But, as the intriguing plot is revealed, there is an increasing sense of almost unbearable ominous foreboding. These three stories by Samuel Marolla share these Ted Klein characteristics.

Each story contains a special surprise, like a tasty nougat in the heart of a chocolate:

Black Tea: A surreal and disturbing central image.

Crocodiles: A recipe for an unusual blood-red wine.

The Janara: Ah, the rules, the rules, we must all follow the rules.

So, I found this box of candy to be made of the tastiest ingredients, covered in only the finest, richest, and very dark chocolate. All this blended by a master craftsman. BLACK TEA and other tales by Samuel Marolla has my enthusiastic recommendation. I will watch for his byline in the future.

-- Gene ONeill, THE BURDEN OF INDIGO

The "principal lodger" ofJean Valjean'sday was dead

and had been replaced by another exactly like her.

I know not whatphilosopherhas said:
"Old women are never lacking.

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

The man walked through the shadows, over crimson carpets, past the mesmerizing patterns plastered on the walls. The air was sultry with no windows or other apertures, just a never-ending progression of forking, dead-end hallways, scattered with dust-laden mirrors, stairs leading nowhere, vaulted arches groaning under concrete masses. The wallpaper concealed other doors leading to cubbyholes and more empty rooms. Dark shelves held up old trinkets thick with dust. The plank ceiling was moldy. Sunlight had been foreign to this place for years.

He looked down at himself, touching his clothes that clung to him like a second skin. He was wearing an Elite Maintenance waistcoat suit, a white T-shirt, baggy dark-blue cotton pants and work boots. He couldnt remember his own name but he had a nagging feeling in his mind a glimmer of consciousness dimmed by that still air in those dull, vacant hallways. Who was he? Where was he? And why?

He rummaged through his pockets and found a folded, squared notepad sheet with the Elite Maintenance heading at the top. Right in the middle, large capital words ground onto the sheet with a red marker:

DONT TRUST THE OLD LADY!

SHE WANTS TOKILL YOU!

The man stood there staring at the words, his hands damp and trembling. What-the-fuck was going on here? An electric fever flamed up in his temples as he considered everything over again. He was some sort of special-maintenance technician. He and his team had been sent to do a job but then everything became a haze, names and faces dissolved into a grayish light, a shroud of sleep and forgetfulness.

What the hell was this place?

He walked on trying to understand and remember. A house a large, empty house with nobody living in it, its halls full of carpets and old drop-lamps exuding a hazy, murky, pestilent light; the walls plastered with old, damp, rotting paper with baroque patterns, dirty blue on a beige background, etched with alien, narcotic patterns, and in the air there as this stale, closed, sick smell. Hall after hall but no windows, no way out.

Countless twists and hallways later, he came to a wooden door with a colored glass panel. He could just see a vague shape beyond that opaque glass. A presence.
Nicola. His name was Nicola. Yes, Nicola was his name, and he worked for the waterworks. They were meant to do some maintenance along the Martesana waterway along the cycling path close to a Rom encampment, where a few isolated houses had sprouted up like weird mushrooms amidst neglected, yet luxurious greenery invaded by Milans July mosquitoes. There were four of them that much he could remember. The rest had been swallowed up in a vortex of unreality.

He opened the door and on the other side he found a room, a small room thickly furnished with antiques: dark wooden wardrobes and highboys, a different kind of wallpaper even more morbid and hypnotic with its labyrinthine twists and turns, and a round table covered with a white lace cloth. From the ceiling hung a drop-lamp larger than the others. Once again, no doors or windows on the outside, no way out.

Sitting at the table, facing the door Nicola had come through, was an old lady knitting away with needle and thimble, both held masterfully in her tiny wrinkled hands. Her deftness was mechanical and nerve-wrecking as she sat there bent over her ball of pretty emerald yarn. She ignored him in fact, she didnt seem to notice him. She hunched over, working intently, her white hair done up in a fine bun, her body small and frail and dressed in a brown woolen robe.

Nicola took a few steps forward and swallowed his throat was burning up. Excuse me, madam

The old lady looked up. Her feeble, perspiring face glistened like a wax mask. Her eager blue eyes had thick dark bags underneath. The skin on her cheekbones fell in heavy arches like the skin on the face of certain lurchers. She had an earthy olive complexion. Her familiar, unctuous expression was reminiscent of a cherished old aunty you hadnt met in ages.