About Red Hair and Momentary Death
Cutlery and its relation to visitors
Mama dropped cutlery one day, a fork, a spoon and knife to be exact. I watched her broad body slide down to get them as her apron hung from her body. I was just a girl then, with my hair in neat braid and my legs as skinny and fair as they will never be again.
She looked at me, with great satisfaction, as if she had finally won the weekly lottery. She removed her peach-colored apron and poured herself a glass of water.
‘Emily, go fetch your white dress.’-Mama requested kindly looking out the kitchen window.
-‘Why mama?’- I still retain the nasty habit of questioning every order I’m given.
‘I have reason to expect company today. Now go put it on and set a fire in the chimney.’
I couldn’t understand this, but I ran to the room I used to share with my brother. As I put my freckled arms through the dress, my excitement grew. We never had visitors, except for the butcher who was a very nice man but was too old to be single. When the fire was burning I sat on our faux Persian rug, watching the flames skip a beat while dancing, and looked at my mother when she sat in the only arm chair in the room.
‘A fork, a spoon and knife…You know what that means, don’t you Emmy?’’
‘No, Mama’-I replied turning my attention back to the flames.
‘It means an angel will come.’-She began humming a Catholic song and closed her eyes in expectancy. I didn’t know in that moment that visitors could be predicted by which piece of cutlery was dropped. A man was to be expected if the knife was dropped, a woman when a fork touched the ground and if a spoon happened to fall, then a man too old to be single was expected. This is how I believe my mother concluded that a heavenly being was to arrive, it was too pure to be ever be defined as anything, surely…it couldn’t be human either.
It didn’t knock once; it simply presented itself on the floor next to me. If you ask me know how did it look, and I could not tell you. All I could see was yellow eyes behind, that held me prisoner. I felt its naked hand through my hair.
Soon it materialized into an old man. His hat tilted to one side, with many wrinkles around his mouth and the smell of warm vanilla flavored tobacco. The hand that still ran through my hair possessed yellow nails, stained by the tobacco itself. The thin old man gave me an incomplete smile, as he grabbed one of the off-beat flames in his free hand.
It lit up in his eyes and it moved with such grace that forgot that Mama was in the room entirely. Releasing his free hand from my blonde hair, he shielded that minute burning dancer with both of his hands.
Without every uttering a word, he placed it on my hair. I was not what I thought it would be; everything in me vanished for one second, I thought I had died or maybe I did die. In this moment of non-life I could see nothing, not the dimmest light to lead me to where all good Christians go.
There came a faint whisper ‘Do not believe, Emmy’. I rose with my hair loose on the carpet and it now had the color of fire. Mama tended to me, saying that the young woman had sang me to sleep; this confused me, for I had never seen a woman, and never heard a song. The old man was gone and he left me with red hair.
Smoking a cigarette writing this story, I came to understand this event. The awaited visitor, my momentary death… you can’t put face on an angel as easily as blonde hair can turn red.
She looked at me, with great satisfaction, as if she had finally won the weekly lottery. She removed her peach-colored apron and poured herself a glass of water.
‘Emily, go fetch your white dress.’-Mama requested kindly looking out the kitchen window.
-‘Why mama?’- I still retain the nasty habit of questioning every order I’m given.
‘I have reason to expect company today. Now go put it on and set a fire in the chimney.’
I couldn’t understand this, but I ran to the room I used to share with my brother. As I put my freckled arms through the dress, my excitement grew. We never had visitors, except for the butcher who was a very nice man but was too old to be single. When the fire was burning I sat on our faux Persian rug, watching the flames skip a beat while dancing, and looked at my mother when she sat in the only arm chair in the room.
‘A fork, a spoon and knife…You know what that means, don’t you Emmy?’’
‘No, Mama’-I replied turning my attention back to the flames.
‘It means an angel will come.’-She began humming a Catholic song and closed her eyes in expectancy. I didn’t know in that moment that visitors could be predicted by which piece of cutlery was dropped. A man was to be expected if the knife was dropped, a woman when a fork touched the ground and if a spoon happened to fall, then a man too old to be single was expected. This is how I believe my mother concluded that a heavenly being was to arrive, it was too pure to be ever be defined as anything, surely…it couldn’t be human either.
It didn’t knock once; it simply presented itself on the floor next to me. If you ask me know how did it look, and I could not tell you. All I could see was yellow eyes behind, that held me prisoner. I felt its naked hand through my hair.
Soon it materialized into an old man. His hat tilted to one side, with many wrinkles around his mouth and the smell of warm vanilla flavored tobacco. The hand that still ran through my hair possessed yellow nails, stained by the tobacco itself. The thin old man gave me an incomplete smile, as he grabbed one of the off-beat flames in his free hand.
It lit up in his eyes and it moved with such grace that forgot that Mama was in the room entirely. Releasing his free hand from my blonde hair, he shielded that minute burning dancer with both of his hands.
Without every uttering a word, he placed it on my hair. I was not what I thought it would be; everything in me vanished for one second, I thought I had died or maybe I did die. In this moment of non-life I could see nothing, not the dimmest light to lead me to where all good Christians go.
There came a faint whisper ‘Do not believe, Emmy’. I rose with my hair loose on the carpet and it now had the color of fire. Mama tended to me, saying that the young woman had sang me to sleep; this confused me, for I had never seen a woman, and never heard a song. The old man was gone and he left me with red hair.
Smoking a cigarette writing this story, I came to understand this event. The awaited visitor, my momentary death… you can’t put face on an angel as easily as blonde hair can turn red.