Rosa was bitten. Rosa was bitten while outside. Outside by the dry-stone wall. I saw it. It was black, she says. Black and furry. Rosa shakes, shivers, and shreds her rainbow dress to pieces, looking for a swollen bite to show. The village women wrapped in black shawls circle her, watch the exotic garment fall into pieces. Rosa jumps, screams, cries: Help me, will you? The women shake their heads, cross their arms. You should have known. Rosa freezes, cool sweat springing from her shoulder blades. But she’s not from here, one of them whispers. Even more so, the others hiss. Rosa jumps, stamps her foot, jumps again. She’s possessed. This is no spider. It’s in her. It’s deep inside her foreign soul. It’s in her alien blood. It’s deeper than our garden wells. Deeper than the olive trees, rooted all around us. For she has no root here. Dance it out, they shout. Sweat, swelter, sweep the spirit, they instruct. And then go back to where you came from. What were you doing behind a dry-stone wall, anyway? they ask. Hiding, she replies. The women grin. Dry-stone walls are not for hiding, the village women say. Not for people. But for snakes. Scorpions. Spiders. Our women do not hide. Rosa jumps, stamps her foot, jumps again. She pulls the broken fabric from her dress. Didn’t you know? Didn’t they tell you? And hiding from what? one whispers. Hiding from my husband, she says. The women look at her now and see there’s more than a swollen bite on her skin. Her garments are no longer exotic, her skin is bruised, her hair is pulled – just like their own. Her blood, her soul no different.
Dance it out, they whisper.
Sweat it, swelter it, sweep it, they sooth.
Slawka G. Scarso works as a copywriter and translator in Italy. Her words have appeared in Mslexia, Ghost Parachute, Fractured Lit, Scrawl Place and FlashBack Fiction among others. In 2022 her novella in flash All Their Favourite Stories was published by Ad Hoc Fiction.
Oof, that works! Powerful and affecting.
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