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From: horowitzl@hotmail.com
Subject: Aberrations in Stravignano
Date: August 20th 2004 10:38:43 PM
To: reports@vilewatch.com
Hi Vilewatchers!
I think maybe I've discovered something.
I'd been travelling round Europe on a EurRail pass, and a
month ago, I was in Assisi when I heard strange rumours about
a small town 20 kilometres away. I'd read The
Vicar of Morbing Vyle and consulted your website,
so alarm bells rang at once in my head. I hitchhiked higher
into the Apennines to the town of Stravignano.
Piazza at Stravignano:
Scene of an Early Aberration
It was like those scenes in the old
Dracula movies, where the sullen villagers turn their backs,
refusing to talk. But I stayed at Stravignano long enough
to win the trust of a few locals. I not only heard the story
but witnessed two examples for myself.
Is it a religious cult or a bizarre
form of art? Is it one person or many? The only thing for
sure is that it's very warped and always involves oysters.
Don't laugh - you wouldn't laugh if you'd seen what I've seen.
Let me explain.
The oysters are placed overnight in
strange ritualistic patterns. The oystermen - as the townsfolk
call them - first announced their presence with a dramatic
display in the main piazza: a ring of oysters, surrounded
by a ring of sugar-cubes, surrounded by a ring of India rubber
erasers. All set out on the cobblestones in the exact centre
of the square. Someone's idea of a joke? But the locals told
me that it raised the hair on the back of their necks even
then.
The two examples I saw for myself involved
a parked car and the flowers in a restaurant window box. The
car had been left in a side street, and was found in the morning
with six slices of beetroot and six oysters threaded onto
its radio aerial. The flowers were roses, just budding, and
someone had inserted a small blobby oyster into every single
bud. I can't explain why, but yes, the hairs stood up on the
back of my neck too. It was as though someone was sending
us a message. But what was the meaning?
I heard of other earlier incidents.
In one case, the local postman discovered two bricks perched
on top of a post-box - and between the bricks was a kind of
squashed paste smelling of oysters. In another case, a young
woman was about to put on her favourite earrings when she
discovered that the zirconium stones had been replaced with
oysters. In a third case, a cow was found wandering the streets
with a teddy bear taped onto its back - and two oysters taped
over the teddy bear's eyes.
I could go on through another sixteen
cases, but you get the idea. At first, the police suspected
an animal liberationist stunt, but there are no oysters produced
in Stravignano, and very few eaten. The townsfolk feel half
ashamed and half terrified. The shame - of having become a
laughing-stock - makes them reluctant to report their troubles.
The terror - and I've seen this myself - makes them dread
the moment of getting up and going out in the morning. They
never know what new aberration they might meet up with!
I stayed eighteen days, then continued
on to Siena, Florence, Pisa and Genoa. I couldn't use up my
entire vacation at Stravignano. But I arranged for one particularly
helpful local to keep in touch by e-mail. That was three weeks
ago, and I've had no word from him at all. Has he relapsed
into the old sullen silence? Or is it something worse?
I hope some vilewatcher will be able
to follow this up. Something very vile is going on in Stravignano.
Yours unvile and unvanquished,
Lee J. Horowitz
(of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, US.)
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