At another time, far away from here, lived a young woman named Meira. She did not look or sound different when compared to other girls, but inside her a volcano was ready to erupt.
Whereas people learn to accept injustice, misconduct or offence, let it slide on their skin right onto the ground, Meira just absorbed it all. The words directly poisoned her organs, each dispute dried up her flesh. Like stones, frustration pilled up on her heart and compressed her ribs.
Meria was once known as graceful and kind, but years of toxins made her a bitter being. Her tongue kept growing from all the words she kept in, so much so that she could not fully close her mouth anymore. Her hair was cut for getting into her face on a windy day. Convicted of scratching her leg by accident, her nails were ripped off individually. One morning, she woke up with a pimple on her forehead and had the urge to burn her whole face.
The more she hated, the more she suffered, and her pain infuriated her. The young woman soon stopped being either. People ran from her in the streets and in return she yelled and cursed.
One day, outraged by her situation, she decided to leave the village and all its ungrateful inhabitants. She wandered for a long time until, finally, found a small pound in the forest she was in. As she was crouching down to drink from the source, a monster appeared under the water! A brown mass of scars and bones, its black eyes fiercely staring back. It didn’t move. Even when Meira screamed, all it did was open its mouth full of small, sharp teeth. Slowly, her hand touched her own rough cheek while the vision copied her. Four eyes and one excruciating look.
Realising what had happened, Meira fell to the ground. Her gaze was turned at the sky, but all she could see was her reflexion in the water. She stayed laying there for a hundred days and a hundred nights. It is all the time it took her to let the anger poor out of her. It started as a few tears coming out of her eyes, then transformed in a torrent taking source from every pore of her soul, flooding everything around her. Her hatred must have been stored in her lungs for she could breath for the first time in years, surrounded by water.
Once she rose, she felt so light she flew to her village. An apology was needed, though she feared the rejection of the atrocious apparition: how could she ask for abnegation when she was the devil himself? As she reached the first houses, people started to run, not from her, but to her. They screamed her name, kissed her cheeks with salty lips. “We have looked for you everywhere!”, “We thought you were dead!”, “It’s a miracle!”.
Meira had prepared herself for horror, repudiation, mockery, but in the warmth of community she did not know how to react. At that moment, she glimpsed at a polished pan hanging on a wall. A young woman looked back, evidently shocked. She had short hair and patches on her skin, and a kind, graceful smile that Meira gave back.
To say the young woman never felt anger again would be untrue. Instead, she learnt to accept it, embrace it, and forgive, others, but most importantly, herself.