The unknown almost revealed

We pass the buildings that are being restored and we cross very few people walking alone. Alessandro looks at me and askes me why don’t i stop somebody to find out where we are. I’m shy. This is the main reason. If I also want to put a bit of patos to all, I prefer to find out trhough hints. We reach an underpass inside the area, undoubtely not abandoned. We meet an attendant transporting trash on a long thing that looks like a little train. He looks at us a bit annoyed and suspicious, with a brush of contempt at the same time. Or at least this is the feeling of who feels guilty of being where she’s not supoosed to be. To tell the truth i have the right to know what happens in my city, but sometimes it wouldn’t be bad to ask permission. But here it seems like nobody really cares of us. You ignore me? So then i’ll do whatever i feel like. In the lowest part of the underpass there’s a treasure: perpendicular two long dark corridors begin, lighted up only by lamps worn out by time and dust. A guy walks back and forth nervously, talking on his mobile phone, preventing me from going inside the corridors: i don’t want uncomfortable witnesses. Awaiting for him to get calmer and to go away, we go on, going back up the other way. First hint. We meet a guy all dressed in white like a nurse. It’s not really the uniform that tells who he is, but the terrible clogs he wears. Horrible, but they must be very comfortable if all the nurses of the world wear them. This part of the area must be recent, the buildings have wide windows and a disgusting yellowish covering... but there must be a good reason here too, being that the 40% of the buildings have this colour. We see in the meantime other nurses pass by. We start to think we are not in Farmitalia, but in a hospital. But is it possible there wasn’t a sign on the gate? Do they want to scare to death people so they have somebody to cure? Probably the other hospitals of the city do too much competition. Actually the Niguarda hospital is much bigger and it was designed by an important architect of Milan, nothing to do with this hole... but it’s not my intention to create tensions. Every place has its own dignity and we have to respect it. There’s a little gate back here that leads to a carpark confining with residential buildings. The first impression is that this little gate leads to the residential buildings. It’s strange enough that these are so close, i usually see hospitals far from residential buildings, usually they are surrounded by parks or large streets. On the gate there is a flyer and it says something about timings for patients and relatives. The heading says: “milanese institutes Martinit and Stelline and Pio Trivulzio hotel”. This doesn’t say anything to me, i’ve never heard of these places and it doesn’t talk about hospitals. I’ll have to keep for myself my doubts. We look towards the underpass, to see if we are free to move: the neurotic has gone away. We go down. I smell something i haven’t noticed before: food: far away i hear women sing and noise of dishes. It all comes out from two opaque windows that show only the neon lights. There are down here the two corridors i’ve talked about before and a very dark room. I err again of inexperience... i haven’t brought the flash light: i give my self an F as preparation for exploration. We enter the first corridor, the shortest one ant the one with more light. There are rusty three elevators, they look broken, but perhaps i’m wrong. The three same doors seem to want to ask me a riddle: “which one of us would you take for a ride in the underworld?” very hard question, i don’t know which one is worse. Exactly in front of the elevators there is an open door... here’s the answer: i forget about the evil elevators and choose the fastest and easiest way: the one i can see where it leads. The door brings me to a staircase, with wrought iron railing, of the type that create a nice prospectic view that has to be taken a picture of. I really would go up the stairs, if only there wasn’t that dark corridor and the room full of secrets waiting for me. The misterious room is my next destination, it’s right next to this corridor. There is a low wall, about 20 cm, to obstruct the way through the passage with no door. I don’t have my flshlight, but i do wear high boots. What i can see from outside its kind of disgusting: cardboard, boxes of medicines, orange peels, empty sigarette boxes (or at least i suppose, i’m not going to verify), detergent bottles... i have the jitters, but fortunatly i’m not fussy, so i go inside.