Last Rebellion of a Leper

A Story by ginsy

Sticks and stones may break Eve's bones, but shame as taken her voice. (loosely based on the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers.)

Last Rebellion of a Leper

Her name is Eve, and it all started with a small, almost unnoticeable, white blotch on her palm.

She is 14, and it is two days before her wedding. Soon the white spot grows, and spreads, until it covers her palm. It is the night before her wedding when her mother spots it. That same night, they go to see the priest; His smile disappears completely upon laying eyes on the patch of skin.

He points at the door, and in that moment, Eve becomes a leper.

So she leaves. She leaves her family, her friends, and her betrothed. She leaves her family for the colony of lepers outside the town. Almost all of them are men, but there is no such thing as purity when you're a leper.

Dull eyes shine up from the dirt.

Men; She grows to enjoy their company much more than the sniveling, tittering girls from her town. These men, these lepers, with their loud, crude behavior and lack of hygiene or manners.

They are her family.

Here they sit, her lying near the road, dying. Them, ten of them, crouched around her. Nobody speaks. Somebody lays a palm, missing every finger but the ring, against the back of her neck. It is comforting somehow. Her breath grows even, though still shallow.

A man walks by. She does not recognize him. You don't get told much, when you're a leper. Ahab, a relatively new member of the colony whose real name they did not know (for Ahab was just a nickname somebody gave him, or he gave himself, she doesn't remember, for his bossy nature), recognizes the man.

"Jesus, son of David."

Most of them cannot speak. Their vocal cords have long since disintegrated from both leprosy and lack of use. Besides, you don't have much to say when you're a leper.

The other men bristle. A couple bare their teeth like rabid animals. Jesus pauses and looks for a second before he begins to approach, but Nathaniel rears up from in front of Eve, and continues to bare his teeth, making threatening noises in the back of his throat. The man, Jesus, glances down at the girl. She looks like a decaying corpse already, despite not having quite died yet.

"My child, do you wish to be saved?"

Air whistles through her throat and she spoke her first in years, and her last forever. She lifts her neck and looks the man in the eye.

"No."

© 2013 ginsy

Author's Note

Whoa needs editing, ahhh, I had an edited version but it went "poof" and now I can't find it. *single tear* If anybody would be willing to edit for grammar and spelling? Please?