Roberto could not believe the injustice; death was not going to defeat him. Though the death of him via a mushroom would be just the thing that would put him back on the map again. For forty-three years, his life was a testament to the superiority of fresh, handmade pasta, and then, BAM! One spoiled shiitake, and his legacy was reduced to a marble slab in the municipal cemetery.
He hovered now, a translucent, furious presence, over the makeshift kitchen set up in the old caretaker’s cottage. He hated the cottage. It smelled of damp earth and neglect, not simmering garlic and good Chianti.
“Antonio!” Roberto’s ghostly voice boomed, rattling the lone, cobweb-draped chandelier. “The fettuccine! It is sticking! You cook like a man who has forgotten he is already dead!”
Antonio, the sous chef come waiter, a bony spectre whose uniform was two sizes too small in life and now hung loosely around his translucent frame, didn’t flinch. Antonio was already dead; nothing Roberto did could make his life worse.
Antonio’s main complaint wasn’t the hours (they were eternal) or the pay (non-existent). It was the dirt. “We are serving in a graveyard!” he muttered, adjusting the stiff, black bow tie that felt perpetually cold. “The customers track mud and dry grass clippings onto the floorboards. In life, at least the carpets were washable. Now, the even the dust is archival.”
The bell above the heavy iron gate jangled, a sound Antonio had learned to dread more than the coming of dawn.
A nervous, living woman named Sarah peered through the wrought iron. She wore a bright red puffer jacket - a ridiculous contrast to the crumbling Victorian mausoleums lining the path. She was here on a dare, drawn by the ludicrous five-star review the Bistro had somehow acquired on a local dining app.
Antonio glided. He refused to walk, as walking felt too alive, to the reception desk, which was, naturally, an upright granite headstone.
“Buona sera,” Antonio whispered, his voice sounding like dry leaves skittering across cobblestones. “Reservation?”
Sarah swallowed hard, clutching her purse. “Y-yes. For one. Sarah.”
Antonio ran a pale, skeletal finger down the chiselled reservation list. “Ah, yes. Sarah. Table nine. Your table is next to the Pergola of Perpetual Rest.” He indicated a path leading past an open grave that was filled with twinkling fairy lights. “Please mind the loose earth. Our newest hire, Franco, is still a bit clumsy with the shovel.”
Sarah took the slate menu with trembling hands. The dank earthy smells rose up to accost her already twitching nostrils. Antonio suggested a starter of Calamari el Forno, the chef’s special of the night. Sarah looked at the wine list etched onto the tombstone to her left.
“I… I think I’ll just stick to water, thank you,” she managed, then quickly added, “And for the starter, I’ll pass on the calamari. I… I’m looking for something lighter.”
Antonio nodded slowly, his expression a masterpiece of dead boredom. “Lighter. Understood. Our most popular lighter dish is the Focaccia della Fossa—the Tomb Focaccia. It’s freshly baked in the mausoleum oven.” She declined hiding a shiver.
Sarah quickly scanned the main course section, desperate to choose something familiar and non-threatening. Her finger landed on the least adventurous option available.
“I’ll have… the Spaghetti with Butter and Cheese,” she announced, trying to sound firm. “And extra salt, please.”
A sharp, translucent shadow screamed past Antonio’s ear, making the chandelier rattle so violently the cobwebs shook loose.
“SPAGHETTI CON BURRO E FORMAGGIO?!” Roberto’s voice was the sound of a thousand wine glasses smashing. His ghost appeared in the middle of the dining room, shimmering with outrage. “Butter and cheese?! That is not pasta! That is an insult to the Bellissimo complexity of the durum wheat grain! We have Gorgonzola di Morte! We have Bolognese del Banshee! We have the Aglio e Olio of Agony! And she orders butter?!”
Antonio, unperturbed, wrote the order down on a slip of parchment that was subtly dissolving in his hand. “The lady requires simplicity, Chef. And extra salt.”
“Salt! It needs a soul, not salt!” Roberto vanished back toward the cottage in a swirl of icy wind. “I will show her simplicity! I will cook this dish so simply it will make her question her own life choices!”
Antonio bowed stiffly to Sarah. “A refined choice, Madam. The Chef is, ah, preparing your ingredients with special attention.”
Sarah waited, her hands clutching the edges of the marble table. The atmosphere, a mix of damp earth and spectral rage, was destroying her appetite. “What on earth was she doing here!” Suddenly, Antonio glided back, his face completely expressionless, holding a plate delicately between his skeletal fingers.
“Your Spaghetti con Burro e Formaggio,” he announced, setting the dish before her.
Sarah peered down. Instead of the familiar golden-white strands she expected, the plate contained a dense, swirling mound of jet-black pasta. The spaghetti, cooked to a perfect, glistening al dente, was stained a shade of midnight by the squid ink. The butter, melted and pooled at the base, looked like liquid moonlight against the darkness, and the cheese - a thin dusting of white Parmesan, appeared to be floating.
It was undeniably beautiful, but profoundly unsettling.
“What… what is this?” Sarah whispered, her appetite officially dead.
Antonio gave the faintest spectral sigh. “This is Roberto’s simplicity. As he screamed, ‘If the lady orders white, she gets the blackness of my soul! It is agony! It is art! And it has extra salt, as requested.’”
As Sarah cautiously picked up a fork, she noticed something else. Weaving through the inky, tangled pasta were several delicate, dried black violets. They were scattered randomly, looking like miniature, funeral-appropriate garnishes, their faint, earthy scent fighting the aroma of butter and rage.
A chilling, invisible gust of wind - Roberto’s spectral presence, whipped across the table, extinguishing her candle.
“Enjoy, Madam,” Antonio said, hovering nearby. “And please, we accept only cash. The credit card machine died long before any of us did.”
Roberto, hovering in the kitchen, a> llowed himself a small, chillingly satisfied smile. That, he thought, was a mushroom well avenged.
💀
This came to me whilst we are travelling through France. We pass many unusual cemetries and my mind just took over.
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What a fun read Brenda. Wonderful.
This was such a delightfully fun read!