Free 100 Days of Happiness by Fausto Brizzi

the future that don’t exist, and the present really is the only thing I have left. Still, there’s nothing I can do about it—my neurons go back and forth in time, navigating memories and imagination like silver balls in an out-of-control pinball machine. I let them have their way, without trying to shake or jolt the machine too much: if my brain gets a ”tilt” warning, it’s all over for me. I let my thoughts bob in the swimming pool of my life, free to drift where they will. I’m not especially lucid these days. I don’t have brain cancer, but my mind is crashing like an old computer. If you look closely, you can actually see the old blinking bomb symbol: SYSTEM ERROR.
    Every day I think I’m going to wake up and discover that this has all been nothing but a long, well-made, and very detailed nightmare caused by green peppers (which is why it is a very dangerous food to eat at dinner), but once again, that’s not what happens.
    I park my station wagon with care. They’ve already written me three parking tickets here in Trastevere; I think the traffic cop must have it in for me. I make my usual stopover in the pastry shop; I chat for a while with my father-in-law, though I make no mention of my buddy Fritz; I eat my beloved doughnut; my friend the sparrow is in a particularly good mood today; and then I proceed along the familiar route to the gym.
    I know every crack and pothole in the sidewalk and every flowerbed along the way. I already know where a dog will bark at me and through which open windows I’ll hear shouting voices. I try to think of the things I want to do in the next ninety-nine days. There’s onlyone that comes to mind, but it’s a very important one: make peace with Paola.
    I take out my Zoff notebook. It’s blank. I open it, smooth the page. Then I write my first words: Make peace with Paola.
    Make peace with Paola.
    Then I cross it out and rewrite it:
    Get Paola to forgive me.
    That’s more accurate.
    I get to the gym and am greeted by the sight of my morning “class,” six fatching women in their early forties. That’s not a typo, they truly are fat-ching, and I think I’ve conveyed the idea. They are a half-dozen office workers, prosperous physically if not financially, poured into hot-pink workout garb, and before they start their working day they come by the gym for my renowned legs-abs-ass class. They’ve long since resigned themselves to the fact that they can’t have a personal trainer like the ones they see on TV, and have to settle for a chubby but amiable ex-athlete. I think they even find me sort of sexy. I admire them for the determination they show in fighting their own personal war against the passage of time. They sweat and they never give up. The results are never astounding, but their commitment is praiseworthy. Some of them even make it clear that, if I were interested . . . , but I think I’ve caused enough trouble with that. I focus with Michelangelo-esque concentration on sculpting their butts. This morning it dawns on me, practically in the blink of an eye, that the work I do is perhaps even less attractive than my station wagon. The only gratification I get from my work is the 1,600 euros I earn each month, but aside from that, I shove sweaty backs as they struggle against the rust in their joints and the general force of gravity; I fill out exercise plans that will never be implemented; I talk and talk about carb-free diets and inside gymnasium gossip. A classic variety of socially useful productive work.
    I go to the office of the gym’s manager, Ernesto Berruti, asunlamped, steroid-pumped former bodybuilder who does nothing but uselessly take up space and oxygen here on earth, and I tell him that, at the end of the month, I’m going to end my working relationship with the glorious Rainbow Gym. He does his best to persuade me to change my mind, offering me a raise of