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Syndic Literary Journal

A Few Drops of Blood

By

Rasha Monsour

Narrated by Anne Chatfield

October 2001

Faces were made from cheer, glee and blessing.

Hands were decorated with the traditional dark Henna.

Mom, dad, aunts, sisters, brothers, friends

were running around like headless chickens all day long.

The windows were open to let the Zagharet penetrate into the neighbors’ ears,

the doors dressed up to welcome the flushed and unpredictable rain.

My house was as New York: noisy, crazy, busy, crowded, and unbearable.

In the meantime I was suffering from an atomic bomb in the heart.

 

In that corner of the orphan bed, I hugged my knees to keep myself from fleeing.

Talking with the four crippled walls – which were the witness

to my childhood adolescences, Bagrut, insanity, nonsense, mistakes,

friendship, conflicts, love, gossips, music, books, secrets and God.

The voices behind the glass door didn’t break that ceaseless conversation.

But their footsteps were coming closer and closer

to pull me from the past turning off the CD of undesirable memories

freezing the oxidizing nostalgia . They were coming

to disconnect me from me.

 

Five hours later, I was such a charming, white, authentic bride with a flushed face, which hadn’t been before. That night,

the hairdresser, the tailor, the cosmeticians mixed me into an appetizing soufflé, leaving a mess into the sink of my eyes .

People said that they enjoyed the enticing pie. Bon Appétit.

That night, my father sold me, cheaply. Far and away,

I cost 50 thousands shekels . What a deal!

That night, my mother whispered softly: Now, you are a wife.

So what?

But the black rain on her angelic face

informed me that being a wife

is putting an end to my current golden life.

 It is to sway with a hushed knife.

That night, they pushed me into an ocean that couldn’t be found by GPS.

That night, my shaken body was covered by a white dress.

The third finger of my left hand was arrested by the bare ring,

That night, the classical bouquet I threw, still behind my back growing and flourishing. .

THAT NIGHT the microscopic red drops of blood turned me

from the savoury soufflé to the dry take away

from a princess to a trivial kind of business,

from the unshakable belief to a fallen leaf,

from a human to a woman

Without regard for

when,

where,

what or

how . . .

 

Compiled/Published by LeRoy Chatfield
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