Big Writer: Antonio
At the age of five, Antonio faced the greatest shock of his life the moment he tore a piece of his mother's pasta at the dinner table and placed it in his mouth. It wasn’t the taste of the pasta, of course; even at that age, he had realized that his mother's cooking had only one flavor, and that flavor was salty, peppery water. The greatest shock of his life came when, as he chewed the pasta, a vision suddenly appeared before his eyes: a balcony in Paris, the coolness of the night, the glowing city lights, the sound of a fire truck’s siren with a red light in its hands, and then a void. Then, the declaration that he, an older, more tired version of himself, perhaps forty-five years old, had been declared dead by a doctor.
"Antonio? My love, are you okay?"
His mother’s voice brought him back to life. He dropped the fork in his hand, lifted his head, and looked at his mother. He recognized the woman he had thought he had lost, his mother.