Imagine a day among friends. Together, you explore coastal trails as afternoon turns to evening. Reaching the vineyard takes some effort, leading you through kingdoms that ordinarily remain unseen. Not because they are invisible, but because they are hidden.
Now it’s time for you and your friends to dream, as one—about these places that exist only because they’ve long been the stuff of shared dreams, these little lives that become vast.
Really, even those who believe they dream alone belong to the dreams of others. They become part of the shared dream. They become the island.
The first kingdom is made of secret plants, mingled with the soil and the soles of your feet, even now, as you walk in the setting sun. Myrtle, absinthe, golden patches of broom. The invisible, the visible, fills your gaze.
Night isn’t far off, but not yet near. There’s still time. Shadows fall. The sky-blue shadows of the dream are more real than actual shadows.
The second kingdom is animal. The secret plants beckon invisible animals to settle here. There are two of them, perhaps just as imaginary: rivals, foes, spirit-guides, cat and rabbit. Your imaginary fingers stroke their fur from head to tail, but the animals won’t let you catch them, not alone, nor ever together. The cat’s presence is the rabbit’s absence, and vice versa. The cat stands guard, the rabbit gets away, and wherever their paws rest—never at the same time—something new appears: the tiniest of lichens, life reduced to its essence, ultimate, impossible, possible everywhere. You carry all this with you.
You’ve nearly reached the end of the trail, almost there. The third kingdom surrounds you, not hidden from view but dazzlingly visible. On the island, this kingdom is everything the vineyard is not, but rather a trace and footprint. Nearby, the lighthouse of Fenaio which seems to signal a border, the arid bluffs of Le Secche where the sea strives to mimic the land, its cliffs and stones. Stones that were once houses, walls and palmentos where many found shelter from the sun and heat, from the night.
Here the ancient dwellers of the island dreamed in closer quarters, nearer to each other.
The third of these kingdoms is the earth, your self, the you that existed before you did. In the silence that pulses with birdsong, you feel the blood rush through your body, the wind one and the same with the sea, impossibly entwined, an ever-changing, endless sea-wind everywhere on the island. Now, the vines planted a thousand years ago grow sideways through your fingers, as amid the dry stone walls.
Everything turns orange, red, gold.
Beside you, someone is smiling.

Laura Pugno
Translated by Julia Nelsen