by Diego Di Matteo
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While I was walking looking for the platform, the annoyance was enclosed between bloody gums, massaged by a tongue which was squirming within shut jaws. And the excessive heat on the forehead clearly demonstrated that wearing a wool sweater had been a choice too conservative for that early spring day.The tensed electric current that was reverberating through the bones of the vertebral column brought back the memory of the sweat of pedaling in the country side, when at every step itchy, prickly, and arrow shaped herbs, grabbed at the loose socks dirty with soil, accompanying the man as a sort of natural carnival decoration. The positive feeling provoked by the massage of the sun’s rays on the hardening forefront reminded me that in the end it was a beautiful day and I was evaluating the positive aspect. But after finding the platform and a half empty car, I noticed that the T structure of the platform was coming over me, reflecting a heavy shade. Of course I was not alone, otherwise I would not have even been there. I was with her. But this did not prevent me from placing the bag in a cabin ¾ empty, whose remaining ¼ was filled by two crossed legs. The perspective had not lied, behind me Sandra was having trouble in passing between me and the big girl. Strong and self-confident, she immediatly started a conversation that sounded to me full of references and allusions that were evocking a brighter future than a lunch at her parent’s house. At that moment the door opened and the sound of the tracks became more vivid. A slim policeman, of average height and with a little moustache, as if it was drawn, occupied the space and mantained the position that was supposed to belong to the ticket collector. He smiled meaningfully, as saying “everything is under control”. The look he gave was everything. His eyebrow was arched as if his head was a temple devoted to who knows which buried deity. So he left the same way he arrived, but this had little importance because meanwhile, in a provocative way, the big girl had gone to the toilet. I waited 5 minutes focusing all the tension into the arms that were busy rolling a cigarette and then I pretended I was going for a smoke. I was not sure which of the two toilets she had choosen but I went right. And as a matter of fact strange noises were coming from the toilet while the indicator was signaling free. The 4/4 tempo of the heart was preventing me from thinking about what to say, but at the same time that my shaky hand was heading toward the doorknob the head knew that there would have been nothing, to say. I opened the door 1/3 of the way and I saw that the mirror was not reflecting anything. Then I went in and I stood alone staring at the tracks speeding through the hole of the latrine. There was a loud noise and I bounced between the sink and the wall, then silence followed by confused screams. I straightened myself up and I went out, more and more people were moving rapidly from side to side, and strangely most of them were around my cabin. Two familiar moustaches sprang from that bunch pronouncing as in a litany adverse sentences for me: “we have been keeping an eye on him for a while, he is an ex-bank manager, now a transexual, he has mugged more than once, this is now the 9th, I do not know how it could happen, it was a mistake”.

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