Once again, I closed all the shutters on my house well before noon. It is rotten out there. The imported smog that passes for domestic fog looks very like soup.

Addendum I (December 22, 2015)

As soon as I got up this morning, I opened the bedroom shutters ajar, and then closed them again. The soup was still there, and it was as thick as ever. I opened no other shutters as I usually do in the morning. Instead, I turned on the lights, and put on a compact disk with Tibetan Buddhist chanting. I am doing my best to attract the bora, the savior wind. It will push the smog back to Italy, where it hails from. At this day and age, nothing but the divine bora can save Istria from the industrial soup cooked up in Veneto and Lombardy across the Adriatic.

Addendum II (December 23, 2015)

The soup is still here, and it has a distinct yellowish tinge this morning. All the shutters on my house are closed, and this is how they are likely to remain for a few more days. According to the meteorologists, there will be no sign of the good old bora any time soon. But I am amazed ever anew whenever I talk to people in Motovun about the nature of the fog that has enveloped us. Although they let me talk on account of my age, it is clear that they are not buying my story about the smog from Italy. It must strike them as too farfetched. As though Veneto and Lombardy are not among the most developed regions in Europe, and as though the stretch of the Adriatic between Veneto and Istria cannot be crossed even by a moderate wind in a couple of hours at most. But enough. Back to my own world…