Naples
Writing

Naples is the most alive city in Europe and probably the least safe.

Controlled chaos · The Spaccanapoli · Vesuvius in the background

Naples operates at a different frequency from the rest of Europe. The traffic moves by a logic that is not the highway code. The street food is prepared and consumed at speeds that suggest urgency about living. Vesuvius sits in the background of every view of the bay — visible, present, benign for now. The Neapolitans have been living beneath a volcano for three thousand years and this has produced a culture that is entirely present-tense, that does not defer pleasure or emotion to a safer later.

"At the pizza place on the Spaccanapoli there were no tables. You stood at the counter and ate. This took four minutes. The pizza was the best thing I had eaten anywhere. Four minutes was enough."

Tumbleweed Words — Naples

Naples writing in Tumbleweed Words is the fastest in the archive — short sentences, quick cuts, the compression that the city itself demands. Neapolitan dialogue is famously rapid; Neapolitan life does not slow down for contemplation. The flash fiction form responds to this: it has the same speed and the same assumption that the reader will keep up.

David — Tumbleweed Words Flash fiction and poetry written on trains, in hostels, and in city streets. Published in Litro, Adelaide Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, and The Dundee Anthology. Pushcart-nominated. Five years on Substack.