Perhaps you are someone when you arrive on the island.
You walk as someone on the beautiful little streets, and you are someone when you admire the fairy-tale houses and gardens adorned with oleanders and lemon trees...
But then comes the Mountain.
And you just keep going up and up, in the heat, in the dust, with that helmet on your back. Then higher and even higher, and the vegetation becomes sparser, and the landscape more desolate. And after a few hours of ascent, suddenly there it is: the crater, the thunder, the explosion, the shower of dust. And the helmet on your head, and the mask in front of your mouth, and the dust and the spit stones falling on you, and you try to take photos.
But then you are no longer anyone. Despite grabbing your phone, despite having the bunker behind you, despite having a dozen people around you. You no longer exist on Stromboli, or if you do for a moment, it's only to realize that you are a nobody. That you are less than a member of the cloud of evening mosquitoes, less than any pebble thrown at you by the volcano, and no matter how many people are around you, no one can protect you from anything. But there is nothing to protect. You are alone. Nobody. Nothing.
On Stromboli, you are annihilated.
You merge into the sand, swept away by the primordial force that spits from the Earth.
You come from dust and turn into dust. Hello, Nirvana.
Then, after a while, the descent begins. Or rather, the jumping. Because on the way down, the path leads through dust and ash. And you, like astronauts on the Moon, hop for 1.5-2 hours, sinking ankle-deep in dust with every step, In darkness, with a mask, a helmet, and the light of a flashlight. As if you had really left the planet.
Then solid ground appears again, eventually the first houses come into view, the sleepy gardens, and you can fall into your bed.
The next day, you are someone again.
And the next day, this someone will once again marvel at the fairy-tale houses and magical gardens that Humanity has built in its infinite struggle against transience, despite knowing perfectly well that the Mountain holds nothing else for the gardens and houses, and ultimately for Humanity, but annihilation.
