Prayer

Miren deeply hated the profound fear her mother experimented at all times as if glued to her body, her tendency to see everywhere the footprints of evil and death, her language full of be-carefuls and just-in-cases. She deeply hated the consequences of that fear: days were always full of prohibitions, rules, prayers, Masses and other oppressive rites. It drove her crazy seeing her mother with no will power or independence of her own, always subjected to something greater and vague.

To her mother’s scandal, at the age of 15 she stood up to all that: she killed God and chose braveness, reason and will power as her guides. Ever since that day, she tells to whomever wants to listen to her that life is unique and that one has to squeeze it until the end, that afterwards we will become nothing but fertilizer, that nobody should shed tears in her funeral. Be it as it may, Miren runs away from everything that smells of death: cemeteries, quietness, hospitals, older people…. particularly older people. Likewise, she clings to life: movement, action, sports, cosmetics, youth… particularly youth,

Today, Miren saw in her mirror her puffy circles under her eyes, the wrinkled corner of her lip, her sagging breasts, her loose flesh, her swollen belly. “No, please, not yet”, she implored. As if she were praying…

(Idurre Eskisabel, in the Basque Newspaper BERRIA, on June 15, 2014)

Translated from Basque by Mertxe de Renobales Scheifler