On the Centenary of Gianni Rodari‘s birth, we remember the famous writer with one of his Fables on the Phone,The Blue Traffic Light, set right in the heart of Milan… To rediscover together, after such difficult times, the courage to “fly”!
Once the traffic light that stands in Milan’s Piazza Duomo did a strange thing. All its lights suddenly turned blue, and people no longer knew how to adjust themselves.
– Do we cross or do we not cross? Are we or are we not?
From all his eyes, in all directions, the traffic light was broadcasting the unusual blue signal, a blue that so blue the Milan sky had never been.
Waiting to figure it out, motorists screeched and trumpeted, motorcyclists made the exhaust roar, and fatter pedestrians shouted:
– She doesn’t know who I am!
The wisecrackers were throwing fits: – The green must have been eaten by the Commendatore, to make a cottage in the country out of it.
– The red they used to dye the fish at the Gardens.
– With yellow, do you know what they do with it? They stretch the olive oil. Finally a traffic cop arrived and he stood in the middle of the intersection untangling traffic. Another traffic warden looked for the control box to repair the fault, and turned off the power. Before the blue light went out he had time to think, ” Poor guys! I had given the “all clear” signal for the sky. If they had understood me, everyone would know how to fly now. But maybe they lacked the courage “.
It is strange for really a blue light, but after all, Gianni Rodari had his own valid reason for telling us his story of courage and freedom, for young and old alike.
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