What will people say?
by Mire Marke
She tells me not to sit on the cold stone slab in front of the fireplace. It will ruin your womb, she says. You need your womb. I tell her I don’t want children anyway. Flames burst from her mouth in the shape of what will people say?
She finishes berating me, wiping her mouth. A plate of peeled oranges and sliced apples appears on my desk. She says nothing. All that she said hangs thick in the air. I can’t breathe very well and I open the window.
She closes the window. She is suffocating me. She says I will get sick if the air flow comes from too many directions. If you keep getting sick, what will people say?
Lay down, she says. I lay on the floor and she places a thick blanket over me. I can’t help but imagine myself as a corpse. I hear the liquid metal drop into the cold water. Yes, she confirms, the evil eye is at fault. You are not yourself. My daughter does not say these things. My daughter does not do these things. My daughter does not embarrass us.
In the morning, she says goodbye and places the deformed metal wrapped in cloth in my palm. Throw it in a crossroad after you’ve had it under your pillow for three nights.
I can’t help but think if I tell anyone about this slow death, what will people say?
Mire Marke is an Albanian writer living in the U.S. and represented by Mina Hamedi at Janklow & Nestbit Associates.
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