THE USUAL DAILY WALK

 THE USUAL DAILY WALK

The sun had just set when she went out for her usual walk, which wasn’t even a walk. In fact when she was going to do it, she used to say: “ I go out to take just a few steps back here” . She went out of the house, then she turned  to the corner on the right of her house and walked on the narrow and stony path that was behind her house. She walked along it up to the wooden little house, which was located on the ground to the right of the path, then she turned back. With going and returning she did not make ( walk) more than five hundred meters. Usually she didn’t meet anyone during her short walk in the late afternoon. Yet someone had to go along that path, besides her, since she happened to find there not only empty packets of cigarettes and empty cans of drinks, but also big bags containing garbage. Evidently someone was using that ou-of- the-way path as a dump for their own waste. Of course she did not like to find these garbage bags on the path, but since they were laid at the edges of the road, they did not disturb her walk so much.  In the road  of earth and stones, and mostly the stones were embedded in the earth, it could happen there was a can, or a piece of paper, or of a cardboard, even a piece of wood, all things that she could easily avoid, and that, in any case, were not an obstacle to her steps ( walk) . There was also the presence of welcome things and welcome beings, like the leaves fallen from the trees, like the little birds which landed on the ground , strolling in search of something to peck. It was a real joy when she found them in the path, but what a sin that they flew away too soon…..She found delightful, enchanting their little steps, the soaring of their little tails, the movements of their little heads, down and soon after up,  on a side and soon after on the opposite side, their beaks  incessantly moving on search of grains, crumbs of food to peck .

One  afternoon, it was summer, it was hot, but a crisp, refreshing breeze was blowing, Alice noticed that strange thing on the road   only after she had passed over it, and only by chance, when she turned her head to look behind her. At first sight, and seeing it from a some distance, that thing, which she had not noticed when she had walked near it, was something dark,  lying  there, in the middle of the road, something that could be a piece of cardboard, or of cloth, or even it could be a piece of wood.( It remained a riddle for her ) That dark thing, perhaps an object, of small size, did not rest entirely on the ground, one end of it stood upright.

Then Alice had come back to be able to see closely that dark oddity  which she could not understand what it was, what it could be. When she had been close to that thing, the first moment she saw it , it was as if she didn’t see anything, so strong was her disbelief. It was just like what she was seeing, what she was looking at, it (this) refused to be seen. It was as if that strange thing was just giving her the feeling of rebound : while she saw that thing, no doubt that she was seeing it, at the same time that thing said her that no, it wasn’t true that she saw it. And this was the immediate visual effect, which (what) she had at the very first glance, before she asked herself: “ But how is something like this….possible?” Of that incredible, unspeakable thing the first detail .or piece(or part) that her gaze was able to focus, to frame, was a head, or rather what remained of a stripped bird’s head, as if it were the ghost of a bird’s head, complete with a beak, and inside the head the small round hole in place of the eye was strikingly visible.

After recognizing  the head as that of a bird, that is, as what remained of the head of a bird, all stripped, Alice noticed the legs of the dead bird, which had, strangely, a rather lively appearance , at least when compared to the appearance of the head. The legs were not as stripped as the head. The bird’s legs, with well recognizable feet and claws, had been pulled up, so that they were at the same height of the bird’s head. While the wings of the bird, almost large, still with black feathers, had been folded down.  That bird had been not only killed, it had been tortured. That bird had been killed by torture. Alice also thought that that dead bird, which seemed a ghost or even a shadow of a bird, with its mangled body, probably had something to do with black magic, it could be a spell directed against who habitually walked that road ( path, lane), in which she went to do a few steps every day.  Then, yes, the dead bird, there in the middle of the road, with its wings and legs bent in a way that suggested torture, could have been an invoice of black magic directed against her.

Alice remembered that recently, a few days before, during her usual walk, she had seen a woman, who was a perfect stranger to her, who was rummaging in the bushes at an edge of the lane . Alice had thought that that woman was looking for herbs to make herbal teas or to eat.

That woman, a brown, middle age woman, who was crouched on the edge of the lane, while she was rummaging, with her hands, in the bushes, which were mostly nettle, had turned to look at her, walking on the road, with a look which to Alice had seemed scared, as if that woman was afraid of her, or that she, Alice, might see what she was doing. Maybe it had been that woman who had put the dead bird there in the lane.  Alice, however, more than anyone, perhaps that woman rummaging with her hands in the nettle, more than someone who wanted to do black magic against her or against others who passed through that lane, she thought immediately that someone, using bogeys in which people recognized black magic practices, wanted to frighten those who went often to walk in that road to induce them not to go there anymore. Then, if so, the question , that spontaneously arose , was : why did someone want to induce her and others to stop going down that path? There was to bet that it was because that someone feared that those who habitually walked down that path might notice something no one should know anything about, that they, she and other people, might discover something that should remain ignored.

Alice ,during her daily walk ,on that path arrived at the wooden house, located on the land at one side of the road, and then she came back. But that path continued after the wooden cottage. Maybe that something which someone wanted to prevent from being discovered was after the wooden house, she came to think.

In the following days, during her walk down that path, a black cat, which came out of the wooden house, crossed the road in front of her. Alice also found in the road, at the height of the wooden cottage, another thing or object that could make think of black magic. This time too it was an animal, indeed it seemed an animal. In fact it was not a real animal, since it was made by a material that looked like leather. It was a frog, completely black, with the body crushed, the tongue out of the mouth , and with a kind of stake stuck on the tip of the tongue. It was not certainly something pleasant to find on your way. However Alice did not think that crushed black frog could be a black magic hex, she continued to think that someone wanted to scare her and the others who went down that path, to make them not go there anymore. But it was only in the afternoon that, after going out for the  usual walk, she heard shouting at her back: “ Don’t go down that road! They do black magic to you!” that she decided: she would go to see what there was in the wooden house. She had never approached it, she had always seen it passing on the road. As far as she knew inside there were tools such spades, hoes, pitchforks , scythes …..for working in the fields.Perhaps there were also chickens and geese which, however, were outdoors during the day. Alice approached the wooden house with some trepidation, sure that there was no one inside. She was also sure that the door was locked. The windows were closed . She would try to see inside by looking through the slits between the planks.

After walking around the wooden house, trying to spy inside through the crumbling between the wooden planks of the walls, unexpectedly the door of the house opened in front of her. Inside the house it was  quite dark. Alice entered and suddenly the light came on. The woman she had seen in the path, who was rummaging in the nettle, appeared in front of her.The woman had a scythe in her hand. Alice almost did not have time to see the flash of the scythe blade , that this cut off her head. Alice’s head fell on the wooden floor, where there were numerous heads of animals: of rabbit, of chickens, of kids, of lambs.