Francesca Melandri (born Rome, 1964) is an Italian novelist, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker. She was the recipient of the Rapallo Carige Prize for Più alto del mare in 2012.

"Letter to the French from their future"

I am writing to you from Italy, so I am writing to you from your future. We are now where you will be in a few days. The curves of the epidemic show us embraced in a parallel dance in which we find ourselves a few steps ahead of you on the timeline, just as Wuhan was compared to us a few weeks ago. We see that you behave as we have behaved. You have the same discussions that we had a short time ago, between those who still say "all of this for just the flu," and those who have already understood. From here, from your future, we know, for example, that when they tell you to stay confined to your home, some will quote Foucault, then Hobbes. But soon you will have other things to do. Mostly, you will eat. And not just because cooking is one of the few things you can do. Groups will appear on social networks suggesting how to spend your time productively; you will subscribe to them all, and after a few days you won't be able to take it anymore. You'll pull out The Plague by Camus, but won't really feel like reading it.

You will eat again.

You will sleep poorly.

You will wonder about the future of democracy.

You will have an irresistible social life, between aperitifs on instant messaging, group meetings on Zoom, dinners on Skype.

You will miss your grown-up children like never before, and you will have an awful feeling in your stomach when you realize that, for the first time since they left home, you have no idea when you will see them again.

Old disputes and antipathies will seem unimportant. You will call people you swore you'd never see again to ask how they're doing.

Many women will be battered in their homes.

You will wonder how it is for those who cannot stay at home because they do not have a home.

You will feel unsafe when you go shopping in empty streets, especially if you are a woman. You will wonder if this is how societies collapse, if it really happens this quickly; you will tell yourself not to have such thoughts.

You will go home, and you will eat. You will gain weight.

You will search the Internet for fitness videos.

You will laugh, you will laugh a lot. The humour will come out dark, sarcastic, depressing.

Even those who always take everything seriously will be fully aware of the absurdity of life.

You will arrange to meet friends in the lines outside stores, to see them in person - but at a safe distance.

You will become aware of everything you don't need.

The true nature of the people around you will be revealed: some will surprise you, others won't.

Intellectuals who had until yesterday pontificated on everything will have nothing to say and disappear from the media; some will take refuge in intelligent abstractions, but lacking the least bit of empathy, so you will stop listening to them. On the other hand, people you had underestimated will prove to be pragmatic, reassuring, solid, generous, clairvoyant.

Those who present this as an opportunity for planetary rebirth will broaden your perspective, but will annoy you as well: yes, the planet is breathing thanks to reduced CO2 emissions, but, at the end of the month, how are you going to pay your gas and electricity bills? You won't understand if witnessing the birth of the world of the future is something grand, or something awful.

You will make music on your balconies. When you watched videos of us singing opera, you thought “ah! Italians!”, but we know that you too will sing the Marseillaise. And when you too start belting out "I will survive", we will watch you, understandingly, just as the people in Wuhan, who sang on their balconies in February, watched us.

Many will fall asleep swearing that the first thing they'll do when they get out will be to get a divorce. Many children will be conceived.

Your children will take classes on-line, and will be unbearable. The elderly will defy you, like teenagers; you will have to argue with them to prevent from going outside, catching the virus, and dying.

You will try not to think about those who are dying alone in the hospitals.

You will want to throw roses at health care workers.

You will hear that society is united in a common effort, and that you are all in this together. It will be true. This experience will forever change your perception of people. But social class makes a difference. Being stuck in a house with a patio and a garden is not the same as being stuck in over-crowded public housing. And being able to work from home is not the same as losing one's job. The "same boat" in which you all travel to fight the epidemic will not be the same for all, because it isn't and has never been.

At some point, you will realize that all of this is really hard.

You will be afraid. You will talk about your fears to those who are close to you, or you will keep your anxiety to yourself, so that they will not have to bear it. You will eat again.

This is what we are telling you from Italy about your future. But it is a prophecy of just a few days around the corner. If we look to the distant future, the one unknown to you and unknown to us, then we can tell you only one thing: when everything is finished, the world will no longer be what it was.

© Francesca Melandri - Published in Liberation on March 19, 2020 - Translated from French by Google Translate and a human