The crack in the skin

That morning when he woke up and discovered the crack in his skin’s toes, he knew it. So many times went through the same that he already knew exactly what to do. That morning he quitted his job. He went to the bank and closed his accounts. He paid the two month rent of his apartment to the landlord saying that he was leaving next day and his sister was going to pick up his stuff left behind. Last call was for his girlfriend. Every time he had to make that call was harder, still did not get used of it, but there was not other option. He met with her in the little cafe at the corner of the street where they had spent so many evenings together and broke up with her.

Later, alone in his apartment, he started to get ready. He didn’t eat but drank as much water as he could. He looked for that plastic that he kept hidden on the top of the closet, waiting for this moment. He extended it over the floor of the living room where all the furnitures were moved gaining an empty space in the middle. At the end of the day, the mirror of his bathroom reflected a bald man that had shaved his head completely.

The evening painted shadows all over the place, over the crack in his skin’s toes, all over his naked body sitting down on the centre of the plastic, waiting. The first spasm began. With caution, he began to pull up skin from his toes. A new skin, so new that was almost transparent, showed below. He didn’t feel any pain when he pulled the dead skin along the legs unfolding new perfect young legs, but then was different. Waves of painful spasms increased, provoking bow him in grief, and his back‘s skin opened in a longitudinal crack line like unzipping an old dress. A new beautiful body was looking for its freedom. Then, he managed to pull out the arms, the neck, the head and finally and very careful the face, leaving a backward empty skin perfectly shaped with his old face looking at the new one.  Twins. Face to face. One old, one new. One empty, one complete. One dead, one newborn. One male, one female.

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Vv