She came down the hill each morning, her eyes dark and heavy with the disturbance of the night, and spoke to them in whispers. She told them of women whose hair was a nest of snakes, dark rivers that ran backwards, gatherings of clouds that rained down scorpions on Old Hope, men as tall as palmis...
The tears did not come but bubbled and boiled inside her, making her belch loudly; they did not drip down her chin and fall onto the empty floor; they did not streak her face and make her eyes red. She cried dry. She was hunched over, low, as if she was carrying the world on her back. People bump...