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There was a girl I knew who just stopped talking one day out of the blue. She had long and beautiful hair and her eyes were soft gray and faraway like the rainy sea. After a few months went by the family grew increasingly disturbed. Everything felt like they were living in a strange movie. They tried everything, the family doctor, rational arguments, a friend of the sister’s who was a Tibetan monk, anger, cajoling, concerned confidence. Nothing changed. For awhile, the boyfriend came every day and sat with her and then he stopped coming. Some mornings she sat outside, face tilted to the sky. Usually she sat in her room, hands upturned and empty, until it was time for dinner. And then she picked up her utensils and fixed a small smile on her face and went through the motions, and it was a bizarre pantomime, the way she moved her arms up and down mechanically, stabbing a pea or morsel of chicken just often enough to be technically eating. She didn’t see the others at the table, not really. It was more like she was looking through them. One day an uncle appeared, the debonair one with big black curls and all the silver. He was a music producer, working with small folk bands from around the world. The father was sending her back with him, back to the place where she grew up. There was a Vlach woman they knew from the hills behind the forest. She read eggs. They were certain she could help. They went there, and the uncle sat talking with the old woman for a long time. Her arms were wobbly and wide, and a pale putty colour, like sourdough loaves. The girl sat still and her eyes took in the bundled herbs drying under the rafters, the assortment of bottles full of Balkan rakija on top of a cabinet. The Vlach poured each of them a giant splash of the stuff, and then she tapped a dirty puffy finger against the Taxco crucifix at his sternum. It was sterling with tiny rubies seeping out of Christ’s feet. The uncle startled and the old woman nodded. The cross was a gift from his boyfriend in Guadalajara, but he took it off and handed it to her. She smiled with with a few gold teeth and a few holes. Then she cracked an egg into a bowl and took a long deep breath and they all closed their eyes. When they opened them, they saw the egg was swimming in blood. A dark shadow passed over the oomancer’s face. A storm is over and another storm is coming, she told them. The girl stood up. I need some air, she said. I’ll be outside gathering wildflowers. She floated to the stone walls like a spectre, softening the blow of the door in the wind with her small hand.
About Lorette C. Luzajic
Lorette C. Luzajic reads, writes, publishes, edits, and teaches flash fiction and prose poetry. Her own has appeared in Ghost Parachute, Brilliant Flash Fiction, The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Unbroken, Trampset, The Citron Review, Flash Boulevard, New Flash Fiction Review, and beyond, and in many anthologies. She has four each of Best of the Net and Pushcart nominations, as well as two for Best Small Fictions and three for Best Microfictions. She won first place in a flash contest at MacQueen's Quinterly, and was shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Awards. She is also the author of two collections of small fictions, Pretty Time Machine and Winter in June. Lorette is the founding editor of The Ekphrastic Review, a journal of literature inspired by art. Lorette is also an award-winning neoexpressionist artist, with collectors in more than 30 countries so far.
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