EPISODE 6 – WHAT WE CAME HERE FOR

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SONG

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LYRICS

Hey yeah yeah

Ooooh

The heat was thick, the sun stood high

I pulled my shirt off, nothing to hide

We talked of trees, the nets, the oil

Of hands that shaped this patient soil

He said, "come rest beneath the tree"

The bark was warm, it welcomed me

Our feet hung loose above the ground

The world was quiet, no other sound

He leaned so close, the world withdrew

"Shall we do what we came here for?"

I couldn't move, I only knew

The thing I was longing for

He stopped my words, his tone was low

The air turned slow, the light turned gold

Our shoulders touched, my heart gave way

The sun forgot to fade that day

His eyes found mine, I couldn't flee

A breath apart, eternity

The silence deep, the moment wide

And something stirred I couldn't hide

He leaned so close, the world withdrew

"Shall we do what we came here for?"

I couldn't move, I only knew

The thing I was longing for

The tree breathed slow, the shadows spun

And I became the silent one

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STORY

The afternoon heat had settled over the olive grove like molten lead; it didn’t hang in the air, it weighed on us—heavy, sun-soaked, almost physical. The light was white and gold at the same time, so dense that the outlines of the trees went soft, as if they’d given up their solid shape for this one afternoon.

We were still sitting on the blanket Giorgio had spread out so we could take a break and so he could let me taste his apples. The last scraps lay on the cloth as he gathered them up slowly, and I noticed how my gaze kept drifting from the fruit to his hands—as if they were a passage from something harmless to something that wouldn’t let me go. It wasn’t the sweet taste of the apples that echoed in me. It was the closeness of this man beside me, steady as something immovable, like a force from a time before my own.

The fabric of my shirt clung to my back. I took it off, slowly, and set it down beside me.

The air on my still-damp skin was warm, brushing over me as if it were checking what had been exposed. I felt my body more clearly—every movement, every unevenness.

I wasn’t built like him—not that effortless strength, not that carved body where, in the heat, the veins stood out along his arms and feet, taut and visible, as if they wanted to be seen, like the roots of the olive trees around us pushing through the earth.

I wasn’t ashamed. But it was painfully clear how much space he took up compared to me. How small I looked beside him—finer, more vulnerable. And that it was exactly this imbalance that kept pulling my gaze back to him, almost unwillingly, almost searching.

Giorgio glanced at me, let his eyes linger a moment too long, then looked away again. No comment.

Just that barely noticeable twitch at the corner of his mouth that I couldn’t read.

He leaned back, a sign he was done eating, and started talking about his trees, which he knew as if they were family. About the nets you spread beneath them, not only to catch the olives, but, as he added offhandedly,

“so the tree can shed what weighs it down.”

He said it calmly, and still there was something in his voice that made me unsure whether he really meant only the tree.

I told him about my small harvest, about the birds that had helped themselves, and about the man with the old press who’d taken everything.

“The price wasn’t good,” I admitted, “but I was glad to get rid of it fast. It was too little to make the numbers work anyway.”

Giorgio just nodded, without judgment, let his gaze slide past me to the sun, then said,

“Hey. Before the sun dries us out for good. Let’s go get something to drink.”

His tone didn’t allow for disagreement. He stood up, and I noticed how easy it was to follow him without asking.

We got up and left the blanket behind like an open book we meant to keep reading later. Then he walked a few steps to the olive tree behind us and put his hand on the trunk where Peppina was tied. Only then did I notice the bucket in the shade, half hidden in the grass. Giorgio looked inside, checking it.

“Peppina’s thirsty too,” he said calmly, almost casually. He picked up the bucket, and I followed him down the small slope until we reached a spring that emerged from the ground between two rocks. The water was clear—cool, alive—as if it came from another world than this heat.

Giorgio set the bucket down beside the spring first, then knelt and scooped water with his hands and drank in long pulls, unhurried, without haste, as if he weren’t just quenching his thirst but washing the heat out of his bones. He drank a lot, cooled his face, let the water run from his big hands over his neck and chest, and his wet skin shone in the sun. I couldn’t look away.

The way his throat lifted and fell, the way his shoulder blades moved under sun-tanned skin, had something raw and unquestioned about it that drew me in. Only when he was finished did he wipe his mouth with the back of his hand and nod to me.

I stepped to the spring, crouched, and leaned toward the water, but barely had I dipped my hands in when I heard his footsteps beside me, then the slow rustle of fabric. He’d walked a few steps farther, to a tree at the edge of the spring. He stood with his back to me. I couldn’t look away, but his back stayed turned toward me.

I drank, but my thoughts clung to him.

I could see him clearly as he stood there: solid, legs set apart, completely at home in his own nature as he watered the tree in front of him—calm, without hesitation, as if he were part of the cycle he’d been talking about. I envied the trunk for being allowed to take what Giorgio gave it, without shame, without questions, and my body screamed for it louder than I wanted to admit to myself.

When he turned and came back to me, I acted as if I were only drinking and he’d only done something ordinary.

“Had enough?” he asked.

I nodded, even though I hadn’t swallowed either the water or that intimate moment all the way down.

Before we left, Giorgio filled the bucket carefully, lifted it with both hands, and carried it back up the slope. He set it down in front of Peppina, loosened the rope a little so she could drink more comfortably, and waited until she lowered her head. Only then did he turn back to me. This time he didn’t lead me back to the blanket, but to an olive tree with a branch thick enough for two men to sit on. He put his hand on the bark, vaulted up with an almost playful motion, and the branch swayed slightly under the weight of his massive body. He let his legs dangle above the ground.

“Come on. In the shade it’s nicer than out there in the blazing sun,” he said, gesturing beside him.

I did the same, though the branch barely registered my weight. The thick limb was warm, smooth, and steady.

“Your nonno sat here too, boy,” he added.

We sat side by side, feet hanging free and close enough that I could feel the warmth of his thigh through the fabric of my pants even without moving. From here the grove looked bigger, and at the same time it felt like there was only us and our dangling feet.

For a while we didn’t say anything.

Then Giorgio turned his head a little—just enough that I felt his gaze before I saw it.

“Tell me again,” he began softly, “who did you sell your olives to?”

“The oil press at the edge of town,” I said.

“And who named the price? The owner?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Someone else. Someone who was just standing there. He didn’t look… like a worker.”

Giorgio gave the slightest nod. Not surprised. Not worried. More like something was confirming what he’d already known.

“Some people buy olives,” he said at last. “Some people sell so that next year everything will still look the way it does today.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He took his time.

Then he said, “Up here you never sell just fruit.” He looked into the distance, not at me.

“You also sell a little… peace.”

“And if you don’t sell?” I asked quietly.

He stayed silent a moment too long.

“Then you still pay,” he said finally. “Just differently.”

I didn’t understand what he meant. I nodded anyway, and he noticed.

He put a hand on my leg and looked me in the eyes.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said calmly. “Without knowing it, but right. You have nothing to fear.”

It should have reassured me, whatever he meant by it.

But his face so close to mine, the warmth of his hand, his gaze drifting again and again to my lips, made me nervous. I thought he was going to kiss me. I froze. I didn’t know what would come next—whether he was like me, or whether he was only testing me.

The seconds stretched into an endless moment.

Then, in a gentle voice, so close I could feel his breath, he said,

“Hey. Shall we do what we came here for?”

I didn’t know what he meant.

But with every fiber of my body, I knew what I wanted. I knew why I’d really come. What I was hoping for. That realization clouded me. His breath at my lips made me forget to answer at all.

I looked into his eyes and stayed silent.