Sacrifice

It was a normal spring morning for Anna. She had a shower, done a few house chores, kissed her husband goodbye as he was leaving for work, and now she was getting dressed to go to the market.

‘I wanna come with!’ said the most beautiful creature in the world, her seven-year-old daughter, Julia. She had chosen a bright blue dress and bright blue shoes to match. Her head was a wonderful chaos of large, brown curls, springing from the top and dropping like a fountain down her shoulders. Anna only had eyes for her.

‘You can come with, if you promise to be nice and never leave my side.’

‘Oh-kaay.’

‘Good girl. Come on, let’s go.’

She opened the door and out into the street they went, and soon after that, they reached the central market. The sun, high in the sky, was casting light through the gaps between the tents. A complex mixture of smells reached their nostrils, smells of pollen, dust, fish, and fresh bread, revealing - in part - what was available for purchase. People from all over their little town were there, walking purposefully or talking with each other, just like every morning. They were here to exchange goods and favors, and for the gossip and chit-chat that’s always vital for getting through the day.

‘Good morning, madam Mayor!’

‘Good morning, Sal. Please don’t call me that. I have a name you know.’

‘Good morning, madam Anna!’

‘Better, Sal. You’ll get there, one day.’

‘What would the little lady like today?’ he said, talking to Julia, wearing a merchant’s smile.

‘A melon!’

‘Julia, no. What do we say?’

‘A melon, please!’ she said, just as enthusiastically.

‘We clearly want a melon, Sal’ Anna said with a laugh.

‘Right away, madam Mayor.’

One day, she thought.

It felt like something changed in the atmosphere, and Anna had to look around, trying to figure out what. There was a woman, walking through the market with her head lowered, avoiding eye contact, looking mostly at her feet. And as she walked, whispers followed her every step. The merchants refused her business, she was pushed around as she passed by, mothers keeping away their children. Everyone made a show of not paying attention to her. Except for Anna.

She recognized immediately what was going on. The telltale sign was the woman’s head, that was shaved to the scalp. A classic punishment the law enforcement used on convicted prostitutes. Shaming them, marking them as targets for others to bully around. But Anna hadn’t seen this for a long time, since she was seventeen herself. She thought - she hoped - those times were over.

‘Mom, what’s wrong with the lady? Why is everybody talking about her?’

She crouched down, and looked straight into Julia’s wide, black eyes, trying to hold back the tears welling up in hers.

‘Nothing’s wrong with her, my love.’

‘A lot is wrong with her, if you ask me. And one should be careful not to end up like that’ said Sal, wearing a look of profound wisdom on his face.

‘Don’t listen to him, my love. Nothing’s wrong with her. She’s a woman like you and me. Thank you for the melon, Sal.’ she said, grabbed Julia by the arm, and left in a hurry, angry and frustrated.

It was a special spring morning for Anna. She had a shower, done a few house chores, kissed her husband goodbye as he was leaving for work, and now she was shaving her head with her husband’s razor.

‘Mom, what happened to your hair?’

‘I just liked that girl’s haircut from yesterday, remember?’

‘Yes. I don’t like it.’

‘That’s fine, my love. Not everyone has to have the same haircut. You can choose for yourself. I will go to the market now, be a good girl and read your books until I’m back. I won’t take long, okay?

‘But, I wanna come with!’

‘Not today, my love’ she said, kissing Julia’s forehead.

Her heart pounding in her chest, her hands trembling with the keys, she opened the door and locked it behind her. She could feel the sun and air caressing her skull, a warm, tingly sensation. Then, one slow, deep breath later, she went off to the market.

‘Oh my god, madam Mayor, what happened to you?’

‘Good morning, Sal, what do you mean exactly?’

‘Y...your hair is gone, madam!’

‘Ah, yes, I felt like I needed a change of haircut.’

By then, the information had reached the edges of the market, moving faster than the speed of sound. And now, there was no sound left, everyone standing still, not even pretending to go about their business. Everyone was trying to listen to their discussion, to find out what happened to the mayor’s wife, why her head was shaved. After all, it would soon be the talk of the town, they wouldn’t want to miss out.

‘But, madam, not this haircut for sure. You know what it means.’ he said, almost whispering.

‘No, Sal, what does it mean?’

‘Madam, please, I cannot speak like this in front of you, you understand.’

‘No, Sal, I don’t understand, please explain to me what’s the problem with this haircut’ she said, her eyes fixed on him, stern, her voice a bit louder than before.

‘It means the woman is a convicted prostitute, madam! What will your husband, the mayor, say?’

‘I’m sure he’ll love my new haircut. So, what’s the problem with a woman being a prostitute?’

‘I beg your pardon, madam!’

‘No, Sal, I beg your pardon. A woman prostitute is just a woman that wants to live, like any other. How she chooses to live is her business and hers alone. And if shaving my head will make you, any of you (she says looking around, people’s stares changing direction in the last moment before they meet hers) actually think about this for once, I’d shave it every day until the day I die.’

She took a deep breath, calming herself, and raised her chin a little.

‘Anyway, enough with this talk. Sal, I would like some apples today, please.’

He hesitated for a moment.

‘Yes, madam Mayor. Right away.’

The following morning, much to Anna’s surprise, the town gossip had worked in her favor. Not because there weren’t people who heard about all this and called her an idiot, or a slut even, but because some actually understood. She could count at least ten, maybe fifteen shaved heads around her in the market that day (one of them was a man). And the morning after that, even more chose to come to the market with their heads shaved. And the the next one, until most of them had completed the sacrifice. Until each and every woman could walk the streets with her head shaved and her chin raised with pride. Some couldn’t even tell them apart any more. They were now one.

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Sacrifice by Dimitrios Kokkinos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License