Free 100 Days of Happiness by Fausto Brizzi Page B

sacrament was officiated. And once you’ve been unbaptized, you automatically nullify all the subsequent sacraments. But I never did get around to it, out of laziness.
    Religion never counted for much in my life. At least until now. Right now any faith of any kind, even some secondary religion, however subordinate and ramshackle it might be, would certainly come in handy. Faith really helps to keep a person company. In that way, it’s even better than a Labrador retriever. But fate didn’t give me that gift. I’m not a believer. But I’m not an atheist either: I’m an agnostic, and as the dictionary tells us, that means I don’t ask questions that I know cannot be answered in any reasonable way. It would be like trying to solve an equation with too many unknown factors. My old friend Leonardo da Vinci was an agnostic too, but back then the terminology ran more toward words like
misbeliever
or
heretic
. He mostly kepthis opinions to himself to avoid winding up tied to one of those uncomfortable stakes surrounded by roaring flames and an angry mob, or seeing all his commissions for sacred art vanish, which would leave him without a livelihood. Throughout his writings, he had little good to say about the Catholic Church, priests, or religions in general. I’m in excellent company.
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    Lorenzo and Eva are still going to school every day—it’s still a month and a half until summer vacation. Paola is likewise very busy with her classes, the way she always is at the end of April, which marks the start of that finals rush, which will culminate in being either held back or promoted to the next year’s class.
    I still haven’t told her that I quit my job. We don’t talk much. This is a bad time—there’s no point in trying to pretend otherwise. Sleeping with us in our big bed is a complicated mixture of regret, resentment, affection, irritation, and awkwardness. We’re never together alone. I really don’t know what I can do to achieve my first and, for now, sole objective.

−97
    T here’s nothing special about losing a game against the top-ranked team. Nothing special and nothing surprising. But there are times when you can even celebrate a loss. Today my Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight was beaten 8 to 6 by the best team in the league, the terrifying Real Tufello, a sort of underwater death squad. Right up until two minutes before the final whistle, we were holding steady at 6-all, going head to head with the unquestioned dominating team of the championship games. Just seven days from the final, the opposition remains undefeated as they sail smoothly toward their automatic promotion to the next series up. In contrast, we’re just fighting to make it into the postseason playoffs, games that will take a few teams into the quarterfinals. Right now we’re ranked twelfth, so there’s still a whisper of hope in the air. We need to keep playing the way we did today and fight like there’s no tomorrow.
    Fight like there’s no tomorrow. That’s what my first coach, an ex–center defender who resembled the actor Bud Spencer but without a beard and an endearing Lucanian accent, always used to say.
    â€œRemember, guys, it’s not over till it’s over.”
    Simple but true. God how I hate it when you are five goals behind just a minute from the end and it would take a miracle to turn the tables. Still, miracles do happen in sports. But they don’t in real life. In spite of all the promotional efforts of the Catholic Church and the unbridled proliferation of blessed saints, there has never been a single scientifically recognized miracle. I’m going to be the exception thatproves the rule. And they’ll have to reference me in all the textbooks on medicine, religion, and magic: “Miracles don’t happen, with the sole exception of a certain Lucio Battistini, who actually recovered from a