Valentino Di Pietro Hernandez
Valentino Di Pietro Hernandez
Valentino Di Pietro Hernandez is a recent graduate from Fresno State University, where he majored in English Creative Writing and minored in Philosophy, earning an associate’s degree in studio arts. He likes the bizarre, theatre performance, and the weird sensation when your brain falls asleep, but your body stays awake. His creative work spans both written and visual mediums, with published pieces and photographs appearing in the San Joaquin Review, Flies Cockroaches and Poets, and hais: a literary journal.
Selected Works by Valentino Di Pietro Hernandez
Dreams of the Behemoth | Fiction
Funeral March
I’ve been thinking about my hometown recently, more specifically, this field of grass in front of the town hall that would be empty for most of the year except in autumn when the Circus would set up tent there.
It was called Circus Monti, or at least, it used to be called that. I think it changed its name; doesn’t matter anymore, but to 12-year-old me, that Circus was the greatest thing ever. Seeing that big red and white tent appear overnight was magical. There were clowns and flying acrobats and elephants and lions. The whole village would be smelling of hay and sugar. I begged my parents to go every day because after a week the circus would be gone just as fast as it came.
I got a letter today. I don’t need to open it to know what kind of letter it is. I’d rather keep going through my memories than open that letter.
I left my village when I was sixteen but I would visit at least once a year to catch up on friends and family. See how much Untersiggenthal would change, not that it would change much at all. It took a thousand years for it to get to 7000 inhabitants, and it would take another 100 years before it would reach 8000, not that that would happen in my lifetime.
For being so old, this village has history. There are the ruins of a castle near the river, but if you asked any Untersiggenthaler about the ruins, they would look at you confused.
“What ruins?”
The ruins in question are more like a low foundation of rock and stone, hardly worth calling a castle, but it was there once. Long long ago.
There are two stores, one bakery, and one school. I could see the school from my apartment, so when I would hear the bell ring, I would storm out of my house and still make it to class on time. My friend Alex though was always late by five minutes, and he didn’t live much farther away. He was tall and skinny, and he could play a terrific game of soccer. In summer that’s where all of us kids would be at; the soccer field playing all day long until night came with its orange light poles, hushing us home tired and exhausted.
I don’t need to open that letter. I sigh and call the hotel to let Tony know I'll be coming. I feel bad for being a little happy because at least I get to break beer with him again.
“Who’s this?”
Oh. It’s a woman's voice on the other end of the phone, and I feel the strings getting longer. I ask where Tony is.
“Oh he retired months ago; sold the hotel to me.”
That doesn’t sound like him.
“Yeah, it was his daughter that made him. She was scared he would have a heart attack sooner or later from running it. You know them people from older generations; work is all they know.”
I nood. I pray I don’t get a letter about him anytime soon. I get ready. Pack my suit and tie and start wondering what kind of flowers I should buy. I can’t think of anything new; it seems I’ve bought them all.
When Circus Monti would leave town, winter would creep in, placing a big patch of snow on that grass. During lunch break, there would be 200 kids trying to bury each other in snow. I remember Boris being a sharpshooter; he could just throw those snowballs pitch perfect, and then he would have that cheeky smile on him afterward that would hurt more than the snowballs.
In spring I would get my revenge at the fountain. In the yard of the school there was this fountain with the statue of a farm women on it, I didn’t know its meaning back then, and I still don’t know its meaning 60 years later, but us kids would have waterfights around her, and there would always be that one unlucky small kid that was grabbed by the bigger kids and dunked into the fountain.
The teachers would chew us out for coming to class all wet, but they understood. That’s right, Lars was always the kid getting thrown into the fountain because he would call the older kids stupid and arseholes and everything else under the sun. He was this chubby kid who couldn’t even run when they came after him.
I sit down on my bed. Letter in one hand, memories in another.
Untersiggenthal is still a small village but it doesn’t snow there anymore. That patch of grass with the snowball fights and the Circus? It’s been developed; A block of apartments with a new store underneath, or at least it used to be new. Long ago.
The Circus still exists, but it sets up tent in another village, and I feel bad for all of those schoolkids that will grow up not knowing that at one point in time, the Circus would come to Untersiggenthal and make the whole village smell of popcorn and donkey.
I thought many times of visiting the Circus but without my parents beside me it wouldn’t be the same, and even if they were still here, I wouldn’t go. I feel like I would be committing some grave sin when it comes to memories. Maybe they are best left of buried, and I’ve been burying them one after another. The letters don’t stop coming, and with each one I remember some new memory long ago about the village I grew up in.
When my time comes, I want the flowers to be roses, and I want to get buried in Untersiggenthal so I can watch it grow until one day the Circus returns for a new generation to enjoy.
Author’s Note: Hello Everyone! My name is Valentino Di Pietro Hernandez and I do a bit of everything; write, art, photograph, just to name the few. I also work on board games and design, speak and write fluent German, and have lived in Switzerland for ten years. It does not bother me anymore when people get it mixed up with Sweden, but now I do have a joking dislike for Swedes. I hope you enjoy my Photographs. Cheers.