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The sixth of my stories: the story of a tattooed girl and a verse
My unpublished stories
What you are about to read is an unpublished story of mine taken from the novel that I started writing in the summer of 2021. In it, a main story alternates with various small stories (for now from 3 to 5 per chapter) that the protagonist narrates at the end of the day, each with its own specific meaning and “why” within the plot. In September 2021 I launched a survey on the Middle East and Surroundings Telegram channel to understand how many were interested in the project and, to my great joy and surprise, there were many votes and all of them positive. Not wanting to reveal the whole work to you, I have chosen to show you only the stories, so that you can have something absolutely new and unpublished to read and I have an extra motivation to carry it on. My ambition is to write at least one chapter a month and thus make this column a fixed appointment, but in any case the stories of each chapter will be loaded all together and only and exclusively if the latter is completely finished.
Precisely for this reason you will already find on the site all the stories of the first chapter “The sand and the wayfarer”: “”The Tuareg and the voice of the desert“,”The Sand Child“, “Atlas“, “The island that is not there” and “Hannibal“. Today’s story instead belongs to the second chapter, which includes:” The tattooed girl “,”Ashes of Sufis “and”Antaeus“.
Enjoy the reading!
The young tattooed girl
In a village between desert and mountains, there were a young man and a young woman. The first was delighted on earth with the mosque and company, while the second found peace only in the most solitary places, enjoying the word of God through the warm wind and the cold snow. Over time, the former became an illustrious member of the community, so much so that he earned the post of imam, while the latter continued his contemplation of the One, managing to observe him in everything. The first read and recited the Quran over and over again a day, the second was illiterate and only with great difficulty and effort was able to reproduce the Divine Language.
Once the feat was completed, she began to read the Book and was struck by one verse: “There is no compulsion in religion”. Completely drunk with Love, she decided to engrave it on her face, in order to remind herself and the whole world. Some time later, she returned to the village to rest after the intense ecstasy and she met the imam.
The latter looked at her and saw the sin, going so far as to condemn her openly in the square for witchcraft and clamoring for her life. At the chant of the imam, everyone answered and the young woman was soon surrounded by a screaming crowd calling for an end. In a moment of so much terror, the girl saw a distant flame and found stillness; she understood her fate and like a moth in love she threw herself into the fire, being consumed instantly.
When the inhabitants approached the place of the blaze, they found not ashes, but a Quran with a blood-red bookmark placed on the verse she had tattooed on her face.
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