Melitta

Dressed all in black, we attend a close-knit family gathering. 

In the middle of the gathering Anima opens her mouth and captures, and then swallows, a Bumble Bee that flies into the midst of us. ‘She’ is alive and kicking inside her mouth and I am initially horrified. Then I realize that it is perfectly normal for her to swallow a living bumble bee. Maybe the bee knew its destination all along?

A few weeks later, Anima and I are walking along a busy ‘shopping-market’ kind of street.  We pass a tightly-knit group of red headed women, of all ages. From teenagers to mature woman, they have ‘startling’ flame-red or ginger hair.

Anima stops suddenly and goes back to one of the young women. I am as taken aback as the teenager, and indeed the whole group.

They all stand still, each one looking in different directions, as in a classical Rembrandt painting. Anima touches the right-hand side of the young woman’s face, just below the cheek-bone, and says, with a profound sense of re-cognition, “It’s Melitta. I recognize the skin graft from when she was burnt as a child”.

The group stands still and silent.

Anima reiterates her discovery by touching her cheek once again, “It is Melitta!”

They don’t appear to be disputing the fact, but are speechless on discovering that not only was Melitta spotted but also that she was recognized by someone who knew her from an early ‘marking’ and had personally taken care of her.

The whole episode was so dramatic, ‘colourful’ and, dare I use the word, ‘unique’, and maybe even, if I may be so bold, epoch making?