Vita Mia

– Fiction by L.J. Longo & Painting by Lui Ferreyra – 

Amore mio, new things look like old things now that you’re eighty-nine.

For example, the slightly squishy woman sitting on the stool in your kitchen is Lucy, our thirty-five year-old granddaughter, and not your little sister, Adelle. She won’t sabotage the spaghetti sauce because she wants Papa to hate you, my love. She wants to help you stir because you are now too frail to crush a boiled tomato.

“Oh, Lucy…” You see the hand on the spoon, your own hand. The wrinkles and arthritis clutch our wedding band as you step away from the heat. “Yes. You stir, Lucy.”

Lucy is a good sport and laughs. But when you give the inch, she edges you out and will not let you near the stove again. She stands like a mountain stirring the precious sauce.

I lean into the kitchen the way I used to when I was alive, to tease you. “Vita mia… What is there to eat? I’m hungry!”

You look to the archway, faintly aware of my presence, but not convinced.

“Lucy, where did your—” You get confused. I, your husband, her grandfather, have been dead for years. Our son, her father, lives two hundred miles away. What man could be lingering here to tease the women hard at work? “Where did your husband get to?”

“I’m right here, Mirella. Come sit with me.”

Lucy’s husband— you can never remember his name— is an easy-going sort and you lower yourself into the chair. Then stop. “Oh! What can I get you to drink? Do you want a glass of water? Some coffee? Some tea?”

The boy—thirty is just a boy, isn’t it?— politely refuses for the seventh time today and lifts his can of diet coke like a ward against your hospitality.

Then he points to the image on the screen-thing. “Can you help me label these photos? What’s this place?”

You put on your glasses—you lovely vain creature, trying to do without glasses at eighty-nine— then you sit with him.

“Oh!” The smile breaks over your face more radiant than heaven. “That’s…”

You waft your hand because you were too classy to snap your fingers. “That’s, uh—”

It’s Bobbie’s Do-Wop Diner. Nice little sock-hop in Franklin where we were born.

“Bettie’s.” You answer.

Oh! Mirella, my sweet, you’re right. Bettie’s. Bobbie’s was our place in Philly. We went to Bobbie’s because it reminded us of Bettie’s. Bettie’s was destroyed when the zinc mines collapsed. How could I forget?

You tell Lucy’s husband all about Bettie’s.You worry about the sauce. You worry about their future. You worry, you worry, you worry.

You have no idea that tonight, you will die.

 

It’s a bittersweet thing. Like a delicate wine soured by sunlight or left to breathe alone too long. Vita mia, you were always too careful with wine. You drank it too slowly. You’d savor a small glass at a time and now you have a shelf full of vinegar. I bet Lucy and this boy will be the ones to pour it down the sink when they clean out our house. I hope they don’t try to drink it!

“What’s so funny, Nonna?” Lucy calls from the kitchen.

She doesn’t look like us. Our eldest boy married a German-American girl. Not a Catholic. It’s watered-down Lucy. No, she doesn’t look like you, but her voice carries out of the kitchen like yours did. She wonders what she’s missing by the stove. Did you use to wonder what you were missing by the stove?

“What’s so funny? Oh, I don’t know.” Your eyes sparkle. “I was thinking of how your nonno would tease me about the wine.”

“Oh, you drink too much?” the boy teases and Lucy laughs. The idea of you having a single vice amuses them.

“No!” You answer, startled and accused. Then you realize the joke. “No. He used to shake his cane and say, ‘Vita mia—drink it, damn it! Don’t just look at it! Drink!’”

Your impression of me is so accurate, so cruel. I cross my arms and frown at you, but I don’t mean it.

The boy asks, genuinely. “What’s that one mean, Mirella? Vita mia?”

“Oh…” For a moment, you don’t remember. It was as natural as your name, once, but this is the first time someone has said those words to you in decades. “It’s just a pet name.”

“It means ‘my life’,” Lucy says from the kitchen. “Nonno used to call her that.”

You look into the kitchen. What’s Lucy doing in there? And all alone! She must need help. Then you remember the sauce and you begin to stand to make sure she’s not burning it. “Lucy, are you stirring?”

The boy touches your arm. “Mirella, is this where you and Patsqwl, uh…”

Americans always struggled.

“Pasquale.” You say my name and it’s like heaven is missing an angel. I would know. “All the kids just called him Pako.”

“Yes, Pako.  Is this where you had that first date?”

You and I both scoff at the idea. If I were alive, I would say—

“No! Pako had more class than that. He took me some place nice.”

Lucy chuckles before the punchline. She’s heard this joke a thousand times when I told it and several thousand more from her nonna in the years since my death.

“He took me to the alley behind his uncle’s ristorante. Classiest place in town!”

Lucy used to roll her eyes when you told this story. You told it so often. We told it to each other so often.

You tell the story again now. Going on about how runty I was in my older brother’s suit, but how dapper I looked to you. I never let you forget that part. And how you wore your good black dress and your mother’s pearls, even though you had to sneak out of the house because you were only going out with me, Pasquale Longo, that idiot off-the-boat. Your family was Northern, blue eyes and blond hair. Mine was Sicilian. Our fathers worked in the same zinc mine, sweated in the same church on Sunday, could’ve come on the same boat together, but you “Miss Ella” Gallo looked like an American girl and I looked like an Italian immigrant.

But my uncle’s ristorante. That had class. That was okay.

Tesoruccio, you were so sweet to me, so pretty in that dress. You didn’t even mind that we had to eat outside. Dining al fresco, my cousin Nick said. He put us outside because I couldn’t actually pay and because if we were outside he could slip us that glass of Merlot. You thought it was cheeky and dangerous, but Nicki was being a smart-ass and cheap. Just one glass of wine, you know, so I wouldn’t drink two.

You lean back when you laugh. “You know, he didn’t tell me it was his uncle’s restaurant for months! How do you like that?” 

If I was alive, I would poke you with my cane and say, “You liked it just fine in 1944! And you would have known it was my uncle’s ristorante if you ever listened to me!”

But I’m not alive, so you have to say my line. “I liked it just fine in 1944. I felt like such a princess out there. With the weeds growing out of a barrel and that teeny tiny glass of wine. He only ordered one so we had to share. So romantic!”

This is not a secret I kept, or a lie I told. It is the way you like to remember it. I worked so hard to not drink the whole cup myself. I tried to sip a little and then give it to you to let you sip a little. But, vita mia, always so cautious, so ladylike.

Such a sweet luscious wine! Summer in a glass, the first blush of love, the kiss of an angel all mingling in one perfect sip.

Lucy’s husband, who has been hearing this story for close to fourteen years, but never seems to grow tired of it —the patience of this boy!— remarks. “Couldn’t get away with that these days.”

“Hum? Giving wine to kids? Oh no.”

“Sharing a glass in a restaurant.” He says. When you look at him confused, he clarifies. “You know, ‘cause of the ‘Rona.”

You haven’t been following this pandemic business, have you, my love? There’s so much to be afraid of that you never watch the news. Only the shows with the gardens and houses and the cooking. It caught you by surprise one day when our daughters showed up with masks and a new set of rules that made no sense. Then you never saw the great-grandkids anymore. They left you all alone everyday. No one to talk to. No one to cook for. Your mind became as weak as your dainty wrinkled wrist. Well, what else could they do? It was a pandemic. You could get sick. They could get you sick and not even be sick themselves. How terrible! You could die.

Kids these days, so afraid of death.

“Say, Mirella.” That’s how the boy gets your attention. When you’ve gazed off into space. Your cloudy eyes grew vague and distracted as you tried to remember if the ‘Rona meant anything more than everyone leaving you all alone.

“You were a teenager in ‘44? What do you remember about the war?”

And your words flow like water. You remember so much— the rationing, how Addy would complain that she would never get to wear make-up or stockings. The victory gardens, you hated getting dirty. The speeches, Papa had trouble keeping up when FDR got very excited and you had to translate. Your older cousin, Theresa, joining the war effort as a secretary and translator and how your uncle beat her, but she went anyway. The older boys going off to fight and leaving stupid, useless, off-the-boat runts like Pako Longo. You remember so much there’s no room for me anymore.

Lucy makes the pasta, the meat, and the vegetables, while you talk to this boy. You don’t know his name, but weren’t they so happy at their wedding? You said, the happiest couple you’d ever seen. Or did I say that and you heard me and told everyone like it was your thought? You always did that, even when I was alive. But I was dead at the time, so I don’t mind.

You’re distracted so you don’t see Lucy check your laundry, as if you’ll forget to wear clean clothes. She keeps an eye on the pantry and the freezer, too. Our daughters worry you don’t eat enough. Of course, you have never eaten enough. My mother used to frown at your skin and bones; she insisted you weren’t really Italian. One night, I shouted at her so much that she never dared say another word. No one else was allowed to tease Little Ella Gallo. Only me..

My mother died in front of a stove cooking dinner for her twelve boys. You tell that story more now than you used to and Lucy squirms before she smiles, “Old school Italians, am I right?” And you were so like my mama. You raised four children and never had a stain in your toilet.

Our children don’t understand, my love. Other women stop cleaning, they misplace lists, but you, vita mia… I never knew how hard you worked until I was dead. I never saw how meticulously you folded the towels, how often you changed the bedsheets. There will always be enough food in your house to feed an army, even if you don’t have the strength to stand before the stove anymore.

What our children miss is how often you clean the bathroom, sometimes twice in one day because you’ve forgotten the last time you cleaned. They don’t see how you race to put away the laundry because you know you will forget if those perfectly white sweaters are clean or not. They don’t see how your hands tremble, because tomato sauce is so much heavier than it used to be. Well, my love, you never made tomato sauce three times in one day. Not even at Easter!

You’ve slipped so far and no one knows it.

Just the other day, you forgot your car in the church. You thought it was stolen. You even called the police, but you hung up when they answered because you were afraid. What if they called your children? How inconvenient that would be! What if they took your license? How could you do the grocery shopping, then?

You decided to walk to church to pray on it. After you prayed, you drove home. You’d forgotten the car in the church parking lot and in the end you didn’t remember losing it.

Our children don’t know you missed your heart appointment. You woke up in time, you took a shower and put on a good bra—what an occasion! But then neither of the girls showed up. You checked the calendar over and over, pacing between the front door and the kitchen and the calendar. Someone had forgotten, but today it wasn’t you. You were too afraid to inconvenience anyone by calling. So you drove yourself.

But, my poor dear one, once you were away from your precious calendar, you forgot where you were going. So you went to church, and when it wasn’t Sunday, you lit a candle for me and your other dearly departed. Then you went grocery shopping and bought more tomatoes and ground beef, which you cooked and put into tupperware and then into the freezer.

I tried to go with you in the car, but driving is like talking to that boy about the war. You forget about me. I don’t mean to sound clingy but it’s the facts, vita mia.

I know your heart is in trouble. I tried to tell the girls but they were so worried about the elections and the pandemic, they didn’t hear me in their dreams.

Lucy did. But Lucy—you forget sometimes—Lucy is a granddaughter and she doesn’t know what to do with her eighty-nine year old grandmother.

So you never got that heart appointment and your heart is going to stop tonight.

 

Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough in the dreams.

I’ll try again.

But, the problem is this. When I try to talk about your heart… I go back to my uncle’s ristorante. And how sweet you looked in that black dress at fourteen, with your hair braided and lipstick put on too heavily. You’d smuggled out the pearls, because even if I wasn’t a big deal to your mother, your first date was a big deal to you.

Most of all, I remember the wine and of course, how the date ended. I stole a kiss. You weren’t ready. You gasped and ran all the way home. I was terrified you’d never want to see me again and I kicked over the trash cans. When Nicki came out, he laughed so hard I hit him. Later, you apologized to me, as if you were to blame, as if shyness and modesty and what do the kids call it, now-a-days?—bodily consent was a fault.

Oh no… I was going to tell Lucy something, but now I’ve gotten as distracted as you. Stunad. Death is all the time stunad.

Poor Lucy wakes crying, feeling unsettled and sad. Thinking about you, amore mio, crying because you’re not dead but you are dying and she doesn’t know what to do with grief for the living. No one ever could.

Her husband wakes up and has to come across the room to comfort her. They sleep one on the couch and the other on a twin bed, because they normally teach English over in China. When this pandemic started, they were stranded on an extended Christmas vacation. It was supposed to be a couple weeks, then became a couple months, now it is just over a year. Their lives have stopped. You’d recognize the feeling.

But, isn’t that incredible? Our grandchildren teach English in China. Across the ocean. The other side of the world. And when they are in China they can call you. You can see their faces on our son’s little screen-thing. Something in you doesn’t like the idea of your children going to another country to work. It’s not just the distance. It’s that… your father and mine came to America to work. And now America isn’t good enough for their great-grandchildren?

I like it, though. Exploration is in our blood… but I’m dead and can’t convince you.

They talk about staying with you, my love. But they both agree it’s not practical. They work and they need something called the Internet and you don’t have it. Computers. Such silly things when they first came, but such important things now.

You would’ve lived longer if they had stayed in one of your catalogue perfect guest rooms. You wouldn’t have missed your heart appointment. But you wouldn’t have tolerated the help. You would be miserable. They would be miserable.

So, this tiny ex-office, with it’s tiny sofa and it’s ancient twin mattress is where they live.

Lucy’s husband— Michael is his name!—comforts his wife. He promises they’ll visit you tomorrow. They’ll do something special and order Italian from a nice restaurant. Lucy laments it’s not the same, it’s not enough. Does she know you are dying right now? Will she suspect it when she hears the news?

She lets herself be consoled and suggests. “Maybe we could take her to one that has outdoor dining?”

“Al fresco.” Michael agrees. “Just like their first date.”

And then both laugh and say together, “classiest place in town.”

 

Twenty minutes away, alone in our bed your heart has slowed to terminal levels. Soon, vita mia, you will die. The machine in your chest will send some kind of signal—I’m not sure how it works. People will come. The children will be called and they will be shocked and silent and grateful and guilty. The grandchildren will be told and they will be hurt and regret being too busy. The great-grandchildren will not understand their parents’ tears only that death leaves a hole their tiny selves cannot fill.

Lucy and Michael will be the last to find out—because their phones are turned off at night, because they sleep late. Too many friends and students from across the world who forget about the time difference.

I feel bad that I’ve woken them with worry. I feel bad that their wonderful plan to dine al fresco will come to nothing. Did you ever wake in the night crying like that? Did I sleep through it? I’m sorry if I did. I think I was a good husband, but I never noticed how thoroughly you clean the dishes. I never knew how long it takes to make stuffed shells or mushroom risotto. These were the secrets between us that just don’t exist between Lucy and Michael. Maybe they weren’t even secrets. Maybe it was just that I never saw. You were invisible. I loved you so much, but your work was so hard to see. You show love in such tiny, ordinary ways.

I only understood grand gestures. I still have time for one more, vita mia.

“Mirella,” I tell you in the darkness, shaking you awake.

Your heart beats so slowly.

“Vita mia, wake up…”

You don’t stir. Your skin is so thin, soft as tissue. You have not shaved your upper lip.

“Hey, Mirella! What is there to eat?”

Your eyes leap open. Your heart thuds and you shift in the bed, annoyed, “Go see yourself, chooch.”

“Oh, the language of my precious wife!” I poke you. “Vita mia, I’m hungry.”

You groan and yawn and mutter. You’re halfway to the kitchen before you really open your eyes. It’s the middle of the night. Your idiot husband has been dead for years. You rub your white hair and shuffle, empty-headed and cloudy, to the kitchen sink.

“Stunad.” You mutter and drink some water, then stare at the night-time streets.

There’s ghosts out there, you know. They don’t frighten you, now. Probably because you know most of them. They are waiting for you, vita mia. All the cousins and uncles and brothers. And, of course, your adoring husband. We’re waiting for you to come and cook for us again, to make us smile with your beauty and perfectly folded towels.

But we can wait one more day.

 

“Stunad?” Lucy asks on the phone the next day. “What’s that mean, Nonna?”

You slept on the couch and can’t think clearly. There is a gauze on the world today. Like you’re not supposed to be in it. “It means… bone-head. Like… I don’t know. Foggy.”

“I like that.” Lucy laughs. “Stunad.”

“Oh, yes. Stunad. That means groggy. Like when you first wake up.” You say. “My father used to call himself that all the time. He used to say, when you’re old you have good days and bad days, but most of them begin with stunad.”

Lucy doesn’t tell you when you get into these loops, but she knows how to break them. “Did you eat lunch yet?”

Is it lunchtime? You just woke up. You haven’t brushed your hair yet. “Yes.”

Lucy chuckles, broken-hearted. You don’t remember but you just confessed to being so lazy that her phone call woke you up. “Aw, too bad. Mike and I were going to take you out.”

You are hungry, not for food, but for the company. “Oh, I only had a little bit. Let’s go someplace. You pick.”

“Okay. We’ll see you in a little bit.”

“Vita mia,” I whisper to you. “Will you wear your nicest dress for me? And the pearls?”

You blush, just like you did at fourteen when I’d somehow conned you into going out with me, and you nod. You take your time and wash your face and put on your nice glasses and your hearing aides and your best bra. You think you’re going to the doctor’s office until you see the dress you’ve laid out. The nice black one. And then you remember.

It’s time for your first date.

The front door opens and you panic. To be caught wearing your good dress on a weekday. Mama doesn’t like Pasquale’s family—says all Sicilians are horse-theives—and if she catches you…

“Hello, Nonna?” Oh, it’s only Adelle. Good. Let her take care of grandma, that crazy old bat, who makes the beds with people still in them.

Wait, Adelle can help. “Addy! Get in here quick!”

Adelle looks stunned and terrified. Hasn’t she seen a woman wearing make-up before? “Uh…”

“Help me find Mama’s pearls. I promised Pako Longo I’d look good tonight.”

“Pako…” She stands looking fat and stupid, wearing her boy clothes. She’s too old to be dressed like that but she never gets in trouble because she’s the youngest. “Oh… okay.”

Adelle finds the pearls with no trouble—of course, she does. She’s St. Anthony’s favorite. She’d never do something crazy like sneak out to go on a date.

The pearls sparkle in the sunlight. “I don’t care if Papa beats me black. I want to wear pearls on my first date. It’s Pasquale’s first date, too, you know. And if this stupid war goes on, it will probably be his last. Help me button up.”

Your little sister helps you. When did she get so tall? No time to worry about that now. Pako will be waiting! You wear the brightest lipstick—the one Mama saved for Easter. You need lipstick to distract from your worn-out old-lady shoes.

“All right. You go to Mama and Nonna. They’re on the porch. You tell them I’m going to get a milkshake with Susie Buchanan, right?”

“Okay.”

“You’re the best, Adelle.” You put on the last of the blush. “There. How do I look?”

Adelle looks like she’s about to cry. “He’ll be talking about you for the rest of his life.”

The restaurant—you ought to say ristorante because it’s fancy—is just as romantic and glamorous as you’d hoped. 

Though, for some reason, Adelle came all the way with you.

“You better not be thinking about sitting in on this date.”

“No.  No, of course not. I’ll just…” Her voice cracks. “I’ll just sit on the bench, out here.”

And because your mother raised you to be a good Italian woman you say, “Well, what are you going to eat?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll go to…” Adelle waves you off. “To Bettie’s and get a pop. Go on. Have a great time.”

You see me sitting just at the mouth of the alley with a little tin chair and an overturned barrel for a table. There’s a daisy wilting on the table and no one else around.

My suit doesn’t fit quite right. A little short in the cuffs. A little worn at the edges. Like something picked up second-hand, but you know I’m the youngest of twelve. This is my newest jacket. I don’t see you right away. I’m staring at something under the table. My hands. There’s a mischief and a desperation, a crazy glint that—I look up and smile at you, a huge broad grin on sun-burnt skin. “Vita mia! You’re so beautiful! I was worried you weren’t coming!”

I get up and pull out the chair for you. You blush and giggle coming over to me quickly, because people are staring. Well, never mind them. You’re just so beautiful, amore mio, that they’re all jealous.

“Sorry,” I push in the chair when you sit facing the alley. No need for you to look at all those modern cars and modern people. “I should have picked you up.”

“Oh, that’s fine. Mama wouldn’t let me come if she saw you, Pasquale. You look so dapper.”

“I am? Wow.” I laugh. “You’ll never live that down. You wore pearls! They’re so pretty.”

“I’m scared to death I’ll lose then.”

“I’ll keep my eye on them.”

You are scandalized. Your heart pounds with nervousness and your stomach splits with butterflies. But you sit with your hands in your lap, so calm and quiet. There’s nothing to fear. You’re behind the restaurant. No one will see you together. And even if they did, what’s wrong with having dinner with another Italian? It’s just dinner.

The waiter comes out and before he can say a word, I say, “We’ll have two fettuccine alfredo with chicken and one glass of Merlot, please. It’s for the lady. She looks young for her age.”

Your heart skips a beat. That will never fly. The waiter certainly won’t…

“Sure thing.”

You hold your tongue until the waiter is gone. “Oh, Pako! I can’t believe that worked! You’re so crazy! We’ll be kicked out for sure.”

“Who could kick you out? You’re too pretty.” I speak with a confidence far beyond my fourteen years but reach for your hands with intense self consciousness—as if I’m deceiving you—and clasp just the tips of your fingers.

Your heart pounds and you grin wildly.

“Mirella, let’s play a game, okay. Let’s pretend like we’ve never met.”

“Never met?”

“Like to start all over again. Like strangers, you know.”

You have such a pretty laugh. “Okay, you crazy man. You start.”

“I’ll start…okay.” I pause, considering. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The merlot comes. Luscious, sweet, smoother than my uncle could make it. Summer in a glass, the first blush of love, the kiss of an angel.

You work so hard to share it with me, but I insist. It’s your wine to drink. I tell you to sip first and then pretend to sip after you. I keep asking you questions, talking about you, instead of demanding all your attention and service. Your color is rising and you look so beautiful when you smile.

Too soon the merlot is gone.

Too soon the meal is eaten.

Too soon it is time to go home. Your heart flutters irregularly. Your ears burn. Your breath comes short, but I don’t notice it until I help you stand.

“Mirella?” That’s Michael talking, not me. Saintly boy, good man. Even if he isn’t Catholic. “Are you feeling alright?”

Michael is scared, but not me.

I know it’s time.

Actually a little past. I’ve made you late, like I always used to.

You look up at me, glowing with love. Is this the moment? Is this it? Will I steal a kiss?

Not yet, vita mia. I’ve made that mistake before.

Michael grows more alarmed. “Mirella?”

You don’t hear him. Just like you don’t see the other people having lunch. How you never noticed the strange music on the speakers, or the chill in the air, or the blue paper masks on the waiters. You don’t feel your legs give way.

In one way, death is like love. You don’t know when you’re falling.

Lucy runs over to you, screaming. Michael catches you and lowers you to a chair, though you’re so frail he’s afraid he’ll hurt you. He let’s Lucy take you in her arms and he gets out his phone. He’s recorded everything, you know. All of Lucy’s frantic texts and all of the strange instructions about getting a seat by the alley and a suit jacket from Goodwill. That’s what he was doing with his hands under the table, starting the phone’s recording thing. Lucy will have our voices forever. She’ll share this conversation with her grandchildren. Isn’t that lovely, my love? Isn’t that a wonderful grand gesture? Even after the sauce in your freezer is all eaten and the jewelry and good dishes and spoons divided between our four children, even after that spoiled wine is washed away, they will have your voice.

You’re delighted to see Adelle, even though she hugs you so hard that you can barely breathe. You can share this with her and no one else. “Adelle! Oh, Addy, isn’t he so dapper! You know, I think I’m gonna marry him.”

She’s so happy for you she cries.

I take you away from your sister, who is really your grand-daughter. Offer my arm to walk you home. We’ll go the long way so Adelle has time to run ahead and distract everyone. We’re not worried about being seen. We’re worried about running out of time, about this magical night ending.

The parking lot fills with people. In the distance the ambulance races to save your life. These kids are so afraid of death.

You don’t notice any of that.

You’re looking into my eyes.

Outside your father’s house, I take both your hands. “I want you to know, Mirella, more than anything I want to get this right. To really be your partner and friend. I’m so happy you’re giving me a chance.”

You only smile and nod, pleased by my words. You grip my hands and lean closer, offering your lips.

Our second first kiss.

It is so beautiful, so pure, the joy bursts your heart.

***

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L.J. Longo is an award-winning Romance author, a queer geek and feminist. She writes a medley of dark romance (which can be found through Evernight Publishing), magical realism, weird sci-fi/fantasy, and very implausible creative non-fiction. In 2019, L.J. won an honorable mention in the Horror Category for Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Awards for her short story “Knife and Needle.” Follow her on Twitter @ljlongo.

 

 

 

Lui Ferreyra is a Mexican born artist based out of Denver, Colorado, whose work primarily consists of landscapes and the human figure. Both his drawings and paintings revolve around a signature style emphasizing the deconstruction of visual experience and it’s reconstitution. His work has been published by New American Paintings, Art Ltd, Wired Magazine, FastCompany, Forbes, Huffington Post, Fubiz and My Modern Met. Follow him on Instagram @ferreyralui.