Post by Giuseppe Gugliotta

Compelling anecdotes: everyday life, Jung, apophatic dimension and 78. Illīsa-jātaka  1. The Gallery of the Double Marco Ferretti came home on a Tuesday in October, leather briefcase in hand, the smell of another continent still clinging to his coat. He found the door ajar and no sound at all. No ticking of antique clocks, no creak of trunks, no scent of old brass that for thirty years had greeted every return.  Inside, a perfect emptiness. The corridors that had once been trenches between boxes and display cases were now wide as ballrooms. The floor, unseen for years, gleamed.  "Marco." His brother-in-law Aldo stood in the kitchen doorway, hands in his pockets, his face arranged in an expression of feigned surprise that Marco recognized from forty years of friendship. "Welcome back. There's something you need to see."  Shock settled into his stomach like a stone. "Where are my things?"  "I'll take you there."  They drove twenty minutes in silence, Aldo humming softly, Marco gripping the wheel as if he might tear it off. They stopped in front of a glass-and-concrete building, a converted industrial warehouse, with an elegant sign: **CONTEMPORARY GALLERY — East Wing**.  Inside, warm museum lighting. A thirty-meter glass wall, lit from above, held thousands of objects — *his* objects — arranged on white pedestals, catalogued, labeled with printed cards: *Brass casket, late 19th century, provenance unknown. Equestrian figurine, bronze, 19th century. Table clock, Junghans movement, 1910.*  At the entrance, an enormous panel read: **"THE LIFE YOU NEVER ENJOYED" — A collective installation curated by the F. family.**  Marco stood frozen before the glass. His reflection overlapped the display cases, his ghost-face suspended among treasures amassed across a life of loneliness and fear of empty space. He raised his hands to his mouth. He could no longer tell where he ended and the collection began.  "We did it for you," Aldo said quietly. "You needed to see them from the outside. You needed to see how much they weigh, when you're not the one carrying them."  Marco wept, right there, in front of thirty years of his life displayed like archaeological remains of a dead man. But it wasn't shame that broke him open. It was relief — sudden, physical, almost painful — looking at those objects and no longer feeling their weight on his chest.  "Can I... can I leave them here?" he asked.  "They stay on exhibit for a year," Aldo answered. "Then everything goes to auction, for charity. Just like you wanted."  "I never wanted this."  Aldo smiled, genuinely for the first time. "You wrote it yourself, Marco. Six months ago, drunk, at dinner. 'If I ever become so obsessive I don't recognize myself anymore, strip me of everything and show it to me from the outside.' I had you sign it on a napkin. I still have it."  Marco Ferretti looked once more at his life behind glass — and for the first time in thirty years, he smiled at a double that finally no longer resembled him.