That
night I saw “Nothing’ sitting on his yellow winged bloody
mouth horse of ego. His
beady eyes were shining with a sense of nefarious revenge,
having it all under perspective of his eyes of owl, impatient to
see the woman’s defeat. He
was tall but he looked like a dwarf.
All the
readings of the recent months and years and the listening to the
tapes of the initial animal farm’s shepherd’s dog and the
chanting of his “master” disappeared under the hoof of his
horse of ego.
His
noodles, so carefully placed in his hat-rack, were turning stiff
with the burning fire of desire of a mean spirit mingled with
the sick malevolence of his sort.
The poisonous drops of sweat of hypocrisy of an
egotistical “Nobody”, wishful to be “Somebody” were
running down his yellowish puffy face, robbing shoulder with his
squeezed lips. His
lips disappeared in intervals with every pulse of pleasure of at
last having won a non issue trifle, his members trembling down
from joy to his weak sick shaky core.
With
every reaction of the woman, trapped in the cruel gaze of the
crowd, feeling the injustice of the unnecessary accusations, the
man’s antenna, would jump higher and higher to detect the
least vibrations from the breath of the witnesses present in the
room, wishing he could put his words in their mouths. The woman
felt she was walking towards the most dreadful rocks and the
deepest sea caves and the most carnivorous fishes.
“Are they going to crucify me or worse, stone me to
death, because I am guilty of being a woman and superior to
them?” she thought.
The
parrots repeated and confirmed the accuser’s words, the deer,
called the woman “dear’ and “good” and “excellent”
and some other kind words.
The butterfly kissed the woman on the face, insisting on
the value of her work. The rabbits chewed on their teeth with rage and showed their
love for the woman in a flaky way.
And that girl who had traveled with the woman and the
woman cared for, had fallen in love with the man and remained
silent.
Suddenly
the woman sat erect and felt proud and remembered how she had
always looked down at the lowly souls. She felt she was sitting on velvety clouds, way up there,
caressed and protected by their wings.
From there, the man seemed even more lowly and
disappearing to become less and less, his face annihilating into
something else. The
woman flew higher and higher.
She was now sitting on the lap of the motherly stars.
Looking down she saw many dirty lagoons with murky water,
replete with double headed worms.
She also saw the cockroaches crowding the land and many
sheep with their heads down, running after the shepherd’s dog.
She saw the man who had now changed into a tiny black cockroach,
trying to climb the rotten trunk of a dead tree.
“He would certainly reach the top, he would, in a
million years”, the woman thought.
I looked
back at the woman sitting on her chair, her eyes fixed to the
window where the bare branch of a dead tree whipped over and
over as if competing with the man’s hidden rage. The
magpies’ scream in the darkness of the night was deafening.
I put my arms around the woman and caressed her on the
head. The room was empty and smelled of “trash and tobacco”,
the silence was mischievous, and the air so stale.
We walked out of the room and when I looked back I saw a
small black cockroach moving up on the surface of the window
pane. The woman looked at me with a faint smile and we each went
our way and disappeared into the darkness and the fog of the
night.
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