“I am coming over!” the voice yelled into my receiver.
“I have made a revelation!” it rasped before abruptly slamming the phone and damaging my eardrum.
Whoever it was would get a terrible surprise, I didn’t take these prank calls lightly. Like when those boys come around throwing chicken heads on my porch. They learned the hard way. They ate those heads in the end, once their mother found out, from combs to eyes and beaks. I very much liked to eat chicken head soup, but not when I was a young boy like those two. Those twin brothers. Cursed hooligans, had no respect for their betters, always making trouble. Well I showed them, just like I will show this man whoever he is, what it means to disrespect Miguel Durante. Pouring myself a glass of last year’s grappa, I sat to wait for this man, the revelator. It took him the better part of the morning to get to my house and I had fallen asleep on the chair, on my porch, when he shook me awake. His watery eyes where bulging and desperate. His chin draped with saliva and slightly drooping one side. The sounds he made were unintelligible, a demented freak, accosting me on my own property. My walking stick was at hand so I caned him about the head and shoulders to make him stop attacking me. We were rocking back and forth undulating like the waves on the sea. It was almost hypnotic and made me disorientated. Our decent into this madness had aroused interest from the neighbors across the street.
“Get this psycho off of me” I shouted.
Finally after an eternity off dizzying hell, strong hands grasped the criminal from behind and pulled him off.
“This beast tried to kill me in my sleep!”
“He was not trying to kill you Senoir Durante, can’t you see he has had a stroke.”
“How would I know, I am no doctor! It serves him right, the bastard tried to choke me to death!”
“I don’t think he did, he was probably trying to get help. I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“Get him off my property whatever you do. I need to go lie down or it will be me having a heart attack after all this shock.”
Mateu called the ambulance and waited with the man on the porch. After they took him he went home and told his mother what had happened.
“That poor man.” She replied
“I know the paramedics said he will probably not survive.”
“No not him, Miguel.”
“What do you mean Senior Durante? He is a horrible old man, he wouldn’t even help him.”
“Mateu, there is something you don’t know, that other man; his name is Durante as well.”
“That is not unheard of, two men having the same name.”
“They are related, they are actually twins. Not identical but still the same person inside, if you can understand my meaning. When they were young boys they ran around making trouble for everyone. They would throw chicken heads at people’s doors and all kinds of other mischief. One day they had an accident while jumping from the cliffs, the ones you were never allowed to go to. Well, Miguel’s brother got severe amnesia and was hospitalized, Miguel went to see him every day but he never remembered his own twin brother. All of their family is gone now and Miguel has Alzheimer’s.
So you see now my dear boy, it is poor Miguel, because he had no idea that it was his beloved brother dying in front of his eyes.
By Daniela Raykova-Ainsley
