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 . . .