Pumice stone

On the Lombard coast there is a solitary beach, made of pebbles, on which the waves of the

sea make the sun's rays shine. Flavio and his mother Anna are on the hunt for that unique one pebble that remains opaque even when wet, light as if coming from the moon, and rough to the touch: they collect pumice stones inside a glass jar, while Anna talks about their therapeutic properties, sometimes magical, to whet the imagination of her son. It's the only time they spend quality time together, after all week Anna dedicates herself to cultivating the vegetable garden and selling her products at the market. She's forced to travel several kilometres aboard an old truck to get to the town square. One day the mother comes back to Flavio after running into a storm and, already tired and weak, she falls ill from the cold. Bedridden, she sends her son for the doctor. With his meagre steps, Flavio takes twice as long as expected to reach the city, where a bad unexpected event awaits him: the doctor is busy assisting another patient with a nerve infection that threatens to paralyse her. In desperation, Flavio turns to the pharmacist, but the bag of coins he drops on the counter is not enough to buy any useful medicine. The old man in the white coat shows mercy on the boy, and recommends him a remedy to prepare at home. Now dark, Flavio hurries back to his mother. Her head burns and she is delirious. Picking the various herbs from the garden, recognising the leaves only with tactile memory, Flavio chops, mixes and brings the potion to the boil; but once the recipe is finished, his mother is unable to swallow it: rigid between the sheets, Anna has exhaled her last breath. Days of mourning and fever follow for Flavio, transmitted from his mother and aggravated by the stench of the corpse, which forces him to ascertain the effectiveness of the medicine on himself. In the pain of being left alive he must survive alone, cultivate the garden and bury his mother under it. He takes care of the house, and pays rent by selling the truck. Meanwhile, the dead woman's toxins go back into the harvest, and cause it to wither: Flavio has no more to eat and what to earn from. The only thing that remains of his mother are the pumice stones. Looking at the jar, he is reminded of Anna's hands, when they gently caressed it with the white mineral, making her baby skin smooth. So he decides to go to the market, to propose to the gentlemen and ladies to smooth their calluses, while he entertains them by telling fairy tales about the stone. The novelty of the offer is popular, many gentlemen request his service. Among these, the owner of the library, impressed by the boy's inventiveness, makes shelves of books available to him, to start him reading stories that the rest of the citizens leave to get dusty. A single girl takes care of it, cleaning and tidying up her books by carrying them on her knees, while she moves from one section to another with the strength of her arms that push her on the wheelchair. When she drops a heavy dictionary on her feet, she doesn't seem to accuse anything. Getting to know her, Flavio discovers that Meredith no longer has any sensitivity from the waist down. Rethinking his mother's conjecture, he asks Meredith if he can tickle her skin with the pumice stone. When she lifts her dress just to reveal her shinbone, Flavio leaves a trail of white powder, which makes the hair on her leg stand up. Meredith is moved, and with wet hands in an attempt to dry her tears, she grabs the pumice stone that Flavio offers her.