The opposite of death

They don't understand that these are things they can't decide. Where they'll be sent, what they'll do. Someone is in charge of them. And their lives no longer depend on them. What can I do to make them understand this? They believe that by listening to me, they'll save their boyfriends. And why shouldn't I let them think that? Maria is seventeen and already a widow. She saw her fiancé enlist and leave for the war in Afghanistan. So he could marry her and buy a house. She left without military training, without knowing how to shoot or defend herself. Like thousands of other young people from southern Italy who don't want to work on construction sites, in a mechanic's shop, or driving trucks on the roads of Europe. For them, there are few options for a "better" life: one of them is to enlist in the first war that comes along. Enzo was left with that option. There are facts we'd like to forget, we don't want to remember even the smallest detail. Memory, however, doesn't have that power, or at least mine doesn't. There are places where being born implies guilt. Where the first breath and the last phlegm are equal in value, the value of guilt. Vincenzo, 24, a bricklayer. Giuseppe, 25, a carpenter. Both know that their professions will not give them respite before they turn forty. They consider leaving Naples and feel defeated at not being able to leave. They know that staying means accepting the weight of the guilt of having been born there. It's Sunday, and they're gathered with friends in a town square. It doesn't take much more than that to be murdered. Two stories narrated by Roberto Saviano. Stories in which he immerses us in the intimacy of a country with very little to offer. A country at constant "war," where young people are condemned, to escape poverty, to enlist in the army or the Camorra. Whatever their choice, they will have no better future than those who didn't have the courage to leave.