THE SURPRISE WAS VERY DOUBLE

THE SURPRISE WAS VERY DOUBLE

Friedrich and Lily had met on a dating chat for adults looking for a partner. They had chatted for more than a month every day, talking about their life, about their interests or passions, they had been happy to discover ( to learn) that they shared several of them. Both Friedrich and Lily loved animals, above all they loved cats, both of them loved music, especially Mozart music. Both Friedrich and Lily loved traveling and getting to know other countries, but also to find out unknown places which could be a stone’s throw from home. Both of them believed in the imminent arrival of winged extraterrestrials on the earth, and both were also convinced that The end of the world, that is the end of the life on the planet Earth , was near . No, the end of the world would not have been caused by the winged extraterrestrials, who instead would have tried to save  the earth and all its inhabitants from the coming catastrophe, but, unfortunately, in vain.

After hours and hours of chatting ( chat conversation) every day for more than a month Friedrich and Lily decided to meet in person. Each of them had revealed the age___Friedrich was thirty years old, and Lily was thirty two____but neither of them had seen the other’s face, which remained an unknown. They decided they would meet halfway from the cities where they lived, two different and distant cities. Friedrich lived in Aosta, Lily lived in Rome, so they would have been met in person for the first time in the bar of the central station of Bologna, where they both would have arrived by train. The appointment had been set five in the afternoon.

When Friedrich got off the train it rain heavily, and he had nothing to protect himself from the rain, neither an umbrella nor a raincoat. He ran down the platform to reach the bar as soon as possible. Under the pouring rain and the gusty wind, his blonde and almost voluminous wig flew off his head. Yes, Friedrich had come to the appointment with Lily in the clothes he usually wore, that is, wearing women’s clothes. Oh, his fondness for women’s dresses, but also for makeup, also for....wigs, he hadn’t told Lily about it, since he had been afraid that the girl’s interest in him would inevitably have waned , if not even vanished ,if he had spoken of it to her.

Friedrich ran after his blonde wig which, knocked to the ground, kept on being dragged by the wind. When he tried to take it in his hand, his wig was wet and disheveled, but he put it on his head again , and he hurried into the bar, that was crowded with people standing at the counter. Friedrich knew that Lily, she, would be waiting for him sitting at a table. So he looked around the room, trying to located Lily. A single man sat at one table, four people were seated at another table, an old woman and a child sat at a third table….All that remained was the table at the back of the room, in a dimly lit area where a young woman sat. She seemed at Friedrich, who was at a certain distance from her, to have something strange. More precisely it seemed to him that this young woman was sitting in an unnatural way. She  was sitting on the edge of the chair, with her elbows resting on the table, as if she needed to support herself , to not fall off the chair.

The young woman looked up from the table and placed her gaze on him, on Friedrich.

“ Damnation” he said to himself “ But sure she can’t think it’s me the one of the appointment (the one she is waiting). She had have expected a man in man clothes, a man dressed as a man.”

Friedrich, advancing with some fear towards the table at which the young woman was sitting, he remembered the yellow flower that they two, he and Lily, had decided to show as a sign to be able to recognize each other, and he took out of his jacket pocket the yellow flower, holding it in his hand. As soon as the young woman saw the yellow flower in his hands, she widened her eyes, an expression of amazement appeared on her face, while she was saying, indeed whispering, something, but he, Friedrich could not hear what she was saying. He walked over to the table. Soon he was in front of the girl, whose face seemed almost worried, even frightened. “ Are you…are you Friedrich? “ she asked, looking intently at the yellow flower in his hands. She was a young woman with a plump, small and pretty face, framed by a thick, curly, brown hair.She continued to stand with her elbows resting, or rather pressing on the table, and she looked like she had trouble, some difficulties to sit in the chair, perhaps because of something she seemed to have on her shoulders, something that seemed to weigh on her shoulders. Friedrich thought with horror that she could be hunchbacked, while he replied that yes, he was Friedrich

“ But we…I mean I…we thought you were a man” The girl, who had to be Lily, said.

“But I’m really a man, even if you are seeing me in women’s clothing , which is the clothing I prefer to wear. Does it cause (provoke) you some problems that a man dresses in women’s clothes?” Friedrich said.

“ Oh no, of course…that is no problem for me” Lily said, and she invited him to sit across the table from her.

“ Ah, but it is a problem for me! And how much it is a problem for me!”  A very high voice suddenly screamed. While Lily winced at that voice, which seemed a trumpet blast, Friedrich started looking around, trying to see who could have shouted that blast. But it seemed there was no one looking at him. Each of the people present in the bar seemed to be occupied with quite other matters that to look at him. “ I was wondering who yelled those words. You must have heard them you too, must you not? “ Friedrich said to Lily.

“ And tell him it was me! “ that same voice screamed again. Lily’s face turned very pale, it seemed to shrink, while Lily began to tremble, as if she was about to fall off the chair.

“ What is it? What is happening to you, Lily?” Friedrich asked, worried.

“ There is that I’m here! I…me… that she wants to continue to hide! But I’m here! I’m here too!” That same voice  shrilled again. Lily slumped on the table : here that another Lily appeared, attached to her back, a girl almost identical to her.  “ Oh, nice guy, I’m here too! My name is Lilian, I’m Lily’s Siamese sister….Ah, darling, let me see you…Uh, how did you put on…how did you dress up! You look like really a woman! While I wanted a man! A man who is a man through and through, yes! A man also dressed as a man!” Lilian cried, while Lily, slumped on the table, was sobbing.