In the Open

Elisa, a thirty-eight-year old woman, leaves for a week with her husband and young daughter on a vacation to a house in the country. Everything is going for her: she has a successful professional career, loves her family, has enough money for a comfortable life, and has plans for the future. After arriving to the country, a strange feeling takes hold of her. She starts feeling the presence of something that moves the treetops at night, makes the dogs howl, and wanders like the breath of a ghost across the infinite countryside. A stinging feeling that kills all her certainties. In the middle of the night Elisa wakes up. The moonlight shines on her face. She looks at her husband, asleep beside her, her look lingers on the body of the man with whom she has spent so many hours, a body that now seems to her that of a stranger. She gets up and runs to her daughter's room. She gently places her hand on the little girl's chest to make sure she is breathing. She looks at the vast field. She will not be able to sleep again.