tausendsassa
“As a very young girl, I understood that the interior activities of the home are as significant as the exterior activities of society.”
What is Hissing.
The girl had slipped down into the bowels of her being. She felt heavy on her left side and the stones she’d placed at her legs had moved up to the chest. Each breath took a little more from her than she wanted to give.
Gasping, she felt the spear enter her body on the left side. It pierced her heart and warmth rippled down her left shoulder, arm, and to her fingertips. As the heat spread from her torso to her palm, she lost all sensation. Medusa had struck and her left side was stone.
Her body became immobile to protect herself from the weight of the spear. She was frozen in a glass pond, eyes peering outward at a sky that simply reflected what she would see.
The girl was grasping for the thing that was beyond her reach; the pain was immeasurable and unmoving. Her feet were somewhere too far below, and what was above was not anchored.
She opened her eyes and returned to the room. Her back ached from sitting on the hard floor and her stomach rumbled lightly. She started with a cup of ginger tea each day and did not eat until noon.
It was better to purge on an empty stomach, and the girl suffered her ego until she prepared a bit of breakfast. It was always the same; oatmeal with almond butter and apple slices. She was, if anything, a pragmatic person.
The girl had to stay seated for some time, not because anyone told her so, but because she could not move her left arm. She moved her palm, so it faced upwards on her thigh and used her right hand to massage her chest and opposite shoulder.
She never knew how long she stayed numb. Each day was different. Sometimes, it felt like an eternity that she sat there nursing the pain in her body, and other times it lasted a few seconds. Or so she thought.
Her teacher had said not to mind the time. It was a construct. Her body would tell her when it was ready to drink, move, eat, and be intimate.
As she sat upright and did slow neck rolls to ease the rigidity in her muscles, she saw that long spear lodge itself in her chest. As she saw the spear reenter her body, her stomach clenched, and a shockwave of pain pierced her heart.
She pushed the image aside and sighed deeply. The ache was deep and she wanted to move. Sit still, be with it, she whispered to herself. As she stayed in discomfort, her arm warmed and she finally could wiggle her fingers. Medusa's snakes slithered from her palm and crept along the floor. She saw their forked tongues, red-red-red, and hissed back at them.
Photo source.
