She whimpers underneath heavy scratchy blankets facing the wall. There is a little noise inside her throat and when it comes out it makes men nail the ceiling and grab her hair to kiss her tiny mouth.
She has serious eyes, downcast but always dreaming. Big black eyes, swirling flashing white dot right in the centre. You can only see the specks if you look close, which is not really something she'll let you do.
She'll show her ancestral canines toiling over unwashed dishes, over rags that need to be mended, over needle-work.
She isn't feisty or rude. She's just alone. She has three favourite things she does as often as she can and when she isn't rushed or pushed into heavy work.
She likes finding eggs. She likes bathing in the river. She likes climbing trees.
She has made a pact with the chestnut planted outside her parents' property that pours its leafy crown over their tiny pines and chicken-pen. Because she has deemed the tree human and a friend, she won't climb him. She won't stick her fingers and tiny feet into its groaning bark and pull her weight up to the top. She won't risk breaking a tiny finger off him.
Eggs are like gold. Some of the crazy mangy hens are bored with their lives. She knows this. She has observed their empty, schizophrenic stares into such interesting things as firewood, chickenfeed and grass. She knows - watching them from the open kitchen with her tiny fists shoved deep in her pockets - that they're just as exhausted with living as they are with waiting to die. So, she ignores their pathetic faces and faded red crests that flop around like old jesters' hats.
Suspended on a fence or on her stomach in tall grass, she hides and waits for dusk. When her golden arms begin getting goosebumps and when her insides feel like matted velvet she lazily stretches her feline limbs overhead and enjoys every crack her elastic body offers the earth and heavens. She smells cinder and ash and burning. Her eyes sparkle. She has faded traces of dirt around her eyes and in her fingernails. But dirt arranges itself on her body in the most splendid manner. Dirt delicacy on her lithe body. She opens her mouth and starts.
The chickens are all crowded in their pen clucking sleepily and softly. They make sharpened soft noises and they're all dreaming of sunshine and yellow corn.
They're finished with the day and most of them achieved mischief - laying eggs randomly. It's their only power. The delivery is inevitable. They all have a biological duty they can't control. But they'll decide where.
They're so creative sometimes. She loves them more this way. Sometimes, she'll find an egg beside the well. Just left there in the sun all day. Warm and exposed.
Or two tiny ones near the fence Just abandoned.
Other times, the hens prove crafty. She's lengthened her body under the firewood pile once and found the tiniest white egg near a rat nest. Just waiting, aloof, unprotected. Claiming it feels so good. She feels strong and accomplished. Once she found a young hen crooning over two eggs. She was just sitting there waiting for them to turn into chickens. Young hens. Morons. They don't get how it works.
She usually picks up these young ones, endures the bright scratches they'll inflict and calm them. Feel their hearts beat against her own. Tiny heartbeats racing against time, against human power. She gets sad then. She doesn't like it but she gets sad. She wishes they weren't so stupid with their empty eyes and racing hearts.
Her favourite claims are eggs found in the grass. Because they're hidden like pearls in shells on the bottom of the ocean. Because they might be lost forever. So she pretends she's out at sea and loves shading her eyes against the sun when she sets out for the 'grasses'. She'll mutter to herself, get ready for the adventure and go on all fours. She might find big spiders running along or weird clumsy bugs eating dirt or impromptu ant colonies busily moving past her, almost guilting her into doing some washing.
She feels the grass. The usually complacent material of grass, the genuinely unflinching, yielding, absolutely comforting presence of the grass. With millions of lives underneath its blanketing. Mostly barren. Until...until, yes..
There's a tiny oval protrusion. Beaten by the sun's warmth. Collecting energy and warm rays. Madalena will delicately extract the treasure without pulling grass. She sometimes imagines the grass is a mermaid's mane and she's plucking a beloved jewel. She'll disentangle the egg from the resisting hairs. She'll smile, open-mouthed, and shivers will run down her spine. She knows how late it must be getting.
She knows her parents are worried - they've been working so hard for the new ugly people.
Those pale creatures with funny clothes and ugly, tormented faces.
Her dirty soles beat to an ancient rhythm the ground, the dirt.
"King sky. Don't darken yet with upset and angry feelings"
She speaks like she's slashing air with a knife. Madalena is a work of art. Her body is becoming unbearably beautiful. Soon, it will be doomed.
Soon, she'll be found in the tall grass by a bigger creature and tamed. Madalena will soon know the plight of her freedom.
Mama is calling me because Daddy lost his job again. I been telling my folks he's too damn smart to be workin' for the goddamn post office sortin' them envelopes and eating only on account of the Blacks' bakery down the street. With the fatty pork liver sandwiches and the damn fried eggs always on the side.
Well, I said to them I can't go home now, not with the way my course is coming along. I told them I'm onto something but mama don't care as long as she'll get half the scholarship money and drink it with Miss Joyce and pretend and keep up appearances.
I haven't heard from Bobby since second semester.
That fool. With his blue eyes and bad jokes.
I met someone here. He's tall and kind of clumsy. He has eyes like an animal. Scared, all-knowing. I'll be eaten alive. Alive. I'm alive.
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