An assignment for my creative writing class.
Jeff lugged his suitcase off the train and set his foot down in Italy for the first time. He was in Rome: home of emperors and gladiators; locus of the Colisseum and the Forum. This was the planned highlight of his tour of Europe, the final historic destination for a student of ancient European history.
His suitcase was already overloaded with souvenirs — he’d had to discard a pair of jeans and a couple of T-shirts to make room. But he could buy more clothes when he got back to the States. He put the suitcase down, unslung the carry-on bag from his shoulder, and wriggled his back to get the kinks out. Sleeping on a train was cheaper than a hotel, but much less comfortable. He glanced around. Surely there must be a baggage cart he could use until–
“Daniel! You come back!” A young, dark-haired woman rushed up beside him and threw her arms around his neck. “I miss you so much. I know you cannot leave me.” She began kissing his cheek.
“What? Stop it. Who are you?”
“Ti amo, Daniel. I love you.” She gripped him tighter.
“I’m not Daniel! You’ve got me mixed up with someone else.” He struggled to push her away.
“No. No. It me, Lorena. You love me.” She began to cry. “Do you not love me anymore?”
“Lady, I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
Suddenly a man in a leather jacket grabbed the woman’s arm. “Che fai?” He turned to stare at Jeff. “Chi sei? Cosa fai con la mia moglie?” His tone of voice was menacing.
“I don’t speak Italian.” He could read Latin, but that didn’t do much good right now.
“What you do to my wife?”
“Your wife?” Jeff instinctively looked at the woman’s ring finger, and there was a ring. “I’ve never seen her before. She thinks I’m someone else.”
“No, Daniel, please. I love you. You promise to take me to America with you.” She held out her hand pleadingly.
The man jerked her back. “You want to steal my wife, American? You think you own the world?”
Jeff raised both his hands in a “hands off” gesture. “Look, I’m telling you, I’m the wrong guy. My name’s not Daniel, it’s Jeff. I don’t want your wife.”
The man looked him up and down, then shook his index finger at him. “You stay away from her. She is my wife. Mine.” With that, he dragged the woman away, as she continued to cry.
Jeff wiped his forehead with his hand. Now that was something to write home about. Come to think of it, the woman had been pretty. Prettier than most of the girls he’d dated. He sighed. That was just his luck with women: married, and they think he’s someone else.
He turned to pick up his suitcase and carry-on, and was surprised to find they weren’t next to him. He spun in a slow circle. They were gone. All his clothes, his camera, his souvenirs: gone. His passport, his notebook, his plane ticket home: gone.
In a flash he realized that the man and woman had been putting on an act to distract him while someone else stole his suitcase. He spun around to look the direction they had been walking, but they, too, were gone.
Something else was gone, too. Before his hand reached his back pocket to feel the emptiness, he knew his wallet was gone. The woman must have taken it while hugging him.
Biting his lip, he made his way to a bench and sat down. What was he going to do now?
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Based on an experience a missionary in my mission had (although it may just have been a mission legend), except that he was lucky and it was all a joke being played on him.