Ann Forever

I’ve known her since she was a child and while I could I protected her from everything and everyone. A few days ago I received an invitation to attend her wedding.

Just before the appointed date she called me and, sobbing, told me he needed to see me. I came to meet her with some concern. The Victorian building, located on the main street of the city, showed the social position of her fiancé. I rang the doorbell and a butler opened me and asked me to wait. She appeared, her face disheveled. A deep pain was discernible in her sad gaze. ‘We have already married,’ she told me.

The one who had just become her husband lay on his deathbed. With a sweet smile, he kept looking at her, as if wanting to take with him the image of his beloved, an image that gradually blurred. A deep groan, a desperate farewell, reached Ann’s ears, foretelling his farewell.

Then, in an infinite effort, he opened his eyes to look at her fragile, broken figure, and whispered: ‘Ann. Please, come’. She pressed her face to his and he said something in her ear. Ann came to me with her head down and with her low gaze told me: ‘He asked me to want to see me naked for the last time. Please, can you leave the room?

The unexpected request left me perplexed and worried at the same time.

I was waiting for a time that seemed eternal. I decided to knock on the door and ask, ‘Ann’. Nobody answered. ‘Ann, are you okay?’ Again, silence for answer. I decided to go in and the show was indescribable. Ann laid on the ground unconscious, completely naked, and her beloved, motionless, with her eyes open, seemed to have passed away. I hastened to see that Ann was breathing, but it was too late. There was a paper between her fingers. ‘I could not let him make this trip alone. Forgive me’.