TE23 Double Feature

Loranne Vella

Rocket

she had left. He expected to see the buildings and the village square where she used to play as a kid. He even expected to find evidence of the lifestyle she had led back then. He wanted to find out if some family members of hers were still living there. Maybe cousins, aunties and uncles, or simply neighbours and friends. Maybe he could see children playing in the streets, trying to extend that half an hour after school, before their mother would start calling them in. He wanted to walk to Mdina square and stop in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral, in the old city where Rika’s parents had married. He was hoping that the winds and the waters hadn’t destroyed all evidence of her past. The marine watch guard, then, asked him about the photographic apparatus he was carrying with him. Petrel told him that it was the only memory he had of Rika. He couldn’t tell him, as he normally did, that he was travelling on duty, since he didn’t have any official 42

document that assigned him to carry such task. It wasn’t the marine watch guard’s business, either, the fact that this time Petrel was commissioning himself to conduct the work of a photographer. Another reason he was attracted to Malta, in fact, was that he wished to photograph the island while it struggled to remain on the surface of the waters, as it took its last breath before ultimately giving up, showing its teeth, extending its claws and releasing the fierce animal dwelling inside it. At last, the marine watch guard stood up and told him to wait there, in the small room at the back of the naval army quarters, in the port of Messina. Petrel was absorbed in his thoughts. If he failed to obtain the permit to travel to Malta, he had no idea of what would be his next step. He had never felt so lost and full of doubt. Usually, wherever he was, he would always know where his next destination was. Sometimes, the choice of the 43