KALEIDOS Number 2 | Page 59

When she turned to the direction of the voice, she saw a man. He was standing on a pier leading to the old shack. He was wearing a wooden mask on his face. At first she wanted to run away from the crocodile and from the weird man in a mask, however he opened his arms saying how happy he was to have visitors for it had been a long time since he had last spoken to a human being. She still didn’t dare to move, so he came closer, took her hand and led her to the shack. “Welcome to my home…” – he kindly said.

The man was quite nice and well educated. He lived there for a year but never showed up around, so

she couldn’t had seen him before. The night before, his car ran out of fuel and he had to leave it close to her house. She didn’t dare to ask about the mask on his face and he didn’t say a word about it.

Since that day, they began meeting regularly and started to spend a lot of time together speaking about life and common interests. He was still wearing the mask and she was too shy to ask what was the reason behind it.

MR. CROCODILE BY MARTA GABARDINI