A Mare I Dream

01.07.18

Yellow, dim light flashed at my face, making me squint. The place was crowded and the air was suffocating. And the smell stunk, hard to breathe.

People were chatty. Noises were too loud. The place looked quite a room divided in a bamboo house, looking old and native. The wall was decorated with native ink drawings. They were drawings of women and girls dressed beautifully with bracelets around their wrists, passive faces. A line of semicircle or two was drawn under their eyes, just above their cheekbones, to the side of their cheek. In dark ink, it's difficult to make out it was a drawing, or a tattoo.

They, and I included, sat in a large circle, our backs almost touched the wall of the room. There're girls my age, and a little younger, and young boys. They seemed to know each other well as if they'd been here for long that each of them was occupied with a person on their side in a deep conversation. On the other hand, I was alone, neither nobody wanting to get to know me, nor I wanting to get to know any of them.

There was a girl, might be a year older, beside me who did not communicate to anyone but didn't look out of place either, as if she knew the place so well. She glanced sideways at me with curiosity but no comment, before turning away. She fixed her gaze at the blank center of the circle, looking vacant.

I noticed all of us were dressed in...remnant of cloths, some looked like old-traditional clothes, but still looked more like remnant of cloths, and dirty. As if we'd been wearing them for long and never had them washed.

Out of the blue, the room went silent. Both a girl sitting beside me and I turned sharply to an opened bamboo door. Behind door was likely to be another room. An old woman step passed the entry, followed by three mid-aged women. They wore worn traditional dressed. Somehow the old lady stood out, looking like a header. She looked roughly at us impatiently, before pointing her wrinkled finger at a group of girls my age opposite me. There were four of them, and fear flashed in their eyes. They dreaded and shrank as the women strode to them. Some of them shook their head in denial. Eyes glittered with tears.

Other people stared at the scene before them in hushed terror. Scared but not dared to say a word. A girl whimpered when a woman grabbed her arm and forced her to stand and follow her back to another room.

Other chosen girls made a sound in their throats, sobbing and shaking their heads in denial. The women became more forceful with them, dragging the girls to the room they came from. The old women followed behind, shutting the door after them.

The hush fell. The circle was now incomplete. We stared at each other in distress. Some were sweating and quietly praying.

After a moment erupted a cry. The girls wept and cried hysterically in absolute terror behind the door. Their cries were louder and louder and the sound of struggle followed. And an agony cry erupted, making hairs on my arms stood. Still, I did not understand what was happening.

"What's going on?" I asked in a whisper, as if I was afraid the women would hear.

"You don't know?" said a girl beside me. She sweated that her black hair clung to her damp forehead and her dark eyes widened. "They're starting a rite, using the girls."

"What?"

"A rite. A crucial ceremony," she added. "At the time of a girl becoming a woman, they cut a girl's face to make them ugly, so the demons won't want to steal them back to their realm." she shuddered. "There were many of us lost."

So there were cuts in the drawings, not painted lines or tattoos.

"What demons?" I managed to ask.

"Demons from our folk tale." she whispered, "But they really exist."

This was bullshit. There were no demons or things like that. This was just some kind of a doing of left native people falling behind in globalization period.

I was lost in this bullshit that did not notice the cries were now silent. As everybody awaited what to happen next. A man strode from the entry, heading to the closed bamboo door, not caring the gazes of the children. He was mid-aged, tall, and tanned, dressing in shirt and jeans, looking much like a normal person.

He looked furious and offended. He knocked at the door hastily, demanding to stop the event.

The door swung open, stood the old lady. A hand on her hip, looking very pungent. Her eyebrows wrinkled as she studied a man before her.

"Whatever you're doing," he started. "stop it. This is wrong. You can't do that to the children. Let them go."

"You have no right to speak." the old woman retorted. "You're not our folk."

"You're hurting the girls." said he. "Quit it or I'll report you."

The door swung close at his face, the woman disappeared behind the door. The man fisted his hands in tight balls, shuddering in anger.

He turned away from the door and had his hands buried in his hair. I gaped when I saw his face. Familiar yet distant.

My uncle.

He was an older brother of my mother. But he and I were not close, actually very distant. We only met once a year in a kin assemblage, or did not meet at all.

I did not show myself to him I was here, or do anything other than sitting here like an air, hoping nobody would acknowledge me.

My uncle snatched a thick, wooden stick laying against the wall near the door in hand. He knocked again, this time looking more determined.

The old lady swung the door open impatiently, and was hit at the face with the stick. She backed a step at the sudden force. The children gasped in fright, and so did I.

Her nose bled, so did her cheek. Her face was red with rage. She reached back to grab a metal pipe and took a swing at his face, making a clank sound of metal and bone. He yelped and recoiled. His hand flew to his face, before he beat her with a stick of wood in his hand. But she fought back. She thrashed him over and over until he sank to his knees, dropping the stick. Then she had the pipe crossed at his throat, meaning to suffocate him. He struggled hard as his hands trying to pry the pipe. With such male force, he pried the pipe off his throat just enough to allow him to shift and turn his face to her, and bit down at one of her bust, hard.

She squeaked in pain, and its sound was extremely unpleasant to human ears. She continued hitting him, attempting to make him let go. But he did not. He bit harder and jerked his head till blood spilled on her dress and his own face. The old woman screamed, and reached for other weapon. She had a steel shovel in hand, and did not hesitate to jab it in his face.

He stilled, and fell on the floor with a thud. Everybody gaped in horror and shock and froze in their seats. The old lady clutched at her chest in hurt before returning back to the room with a door closed.

I was panting as if I'd been running for miles. All I saw was my uncle's bruised and bloody face jammed on the floor. I had no clue if he's breathing or not. I did not dare have a closer look and examine.

We all merely sat there. Froze by fear. Sweating. Panting. And waiting for whatever coming next.