Spring processions

No, nothing to do with Easter. This weekend I have witnessed two different kinds of processions. I found both of them scary and fascinating at the same time.

The first procession was that of customers going to a supermarket not far from my house. My dad, who's obsessed with healthy food and sports, calls it the cemetery and I can tell you the name is quite appropriate. In this supermarket you can find anything from mushrooms to fish, seafood, pasta with different souces, ready made lasagne, risottos, gnocchi, vegetables, icecream...You name it. Everything is chopped, sliced or diced and stored in big bulky coffins freezers.

Customers walk around the aisles like zombies before the apocalypse and have a hard time deciding what they are going to defrost for dinner. The place is completely silent and there's only one person working in the shop. A bored-looking middle-aged man who sits behind the till and stares ahead blankly. From time to time he stands up and walks slowly to one of the coffins, opens it solemnly, stirs its content and then walks back to his seat. If you walk out of the place without having bought anything, he raises his eyebrows suspiciously and hands you a brochure with all the newest products on offer. Some of the circles of Dante's inferno are half as scary!


Procession number two also took place not far from my house and althought it looks less scary at first, it is not, once you find out what pine processionaries are and what they do. Just as well my doggy was too busy catching up on sleep and recovering from spring fever to go for a walk with me. These wee beasts would have scared the s**t out of her!