Fiction
The Price of Ignorance
In just five hours, everything can change
At 4:00, every morning, the old woman stirs from her slumber. At 10 past the hour, she ties her white turban over her salt-and-pepper locked hair, kneels in the direction of Lalibela’s rock-strewn temples, clasps her hands, wrings her fingers together so they cannot escape, and she prays for him.
It does not matter that soon after finishing, her knees ache and her head hurts from the mishmash of thoughts clashing against the other in violence. It does not matter that her life flashes before her eyes, so disorganized that in one minute, she thinks herself three years old and needs an attendant to wipe the shit oozing from the side of her diaper, and in the next minute, she is 35, free of her wheelchair and headed to the kitchen quick-sharp to boss the workers around.
No, at 4:00, every morning, her memory sits on the edge of a sling blade. There is no dullness then, no shadows cast in opposition. In those moments, she renders her soul naked, sacrifices herself at the altar for his sake, whispers her sacred incantations seven times seven, and calls to the saints to surround him, to protect him.
At 5:00, his alarm awakens him from a night of restless sleep. He should have been tired, but the excitement pressing against his…
