“You’d better hurry, you’ll lose them.” A clear, quiet voice said to her.

Startled, she glanced quickly around, failing again to find the source of the encouraging voice. A bit confused, she had stopped to adjust her worn sandals, but with the voice seeming to repeat in her head, she took a deep breath and set off again quickly towards the corner. She approached the end of the street, and as she rounded the corner a quick flash of memory struck her, as she recognized where she was. A moment later, she was struck heavily on the head.

Stunned, she dropped to her knees in the dust. Her eyes swimming with tears she struggled to regain her feet when she was pushed down forcefully from behind. Her face was driven into the ground, she heard the hiss of the beggar as he spat out a cruel curse.

“Filthy woman! Just where do think you’re going?” growled the beggar. “Not chasing after Jarius are we? What would a woman as unclean as you have to do with him, a leader of the synagogue?” He forced his knee into her back as she tried to push herself back off the ground. Struggling but weakened from the fall, she was unable to free herself from him.

“Let me go! I’ve given you all I have!” screamed the woman. “Let me go! Help me someone!”

“Who would care enough to help you? You’re worthless.” The beggar crowed as he ground his knee into her back, her shoulders pinned down by his hands. Leaning down next to her face, he smiled sickly at her, as she redoubled her efforts to escape. She could smell the liquor on his breath, probably bought with the few coins he had stolen from her that morning. The missing teeth made his devilish smile terrifying. It was becoming difficult for her to breath as the beggar put more and more of his weight unto her back, his knee jammed between her ribs. She fought to turn her face away from his, choking on the dust of the road as she struggled.

Gloating, the beggar began to laugh, and shifted his weight so he could whisper in to her ear.

“I’ll kill you, worthless woman. I’ll kill you and they’ll all thank me for it.” He hissed.

It was getting harder to see, black creeping in around the edges of her sight. As she continued to struggle, her thoughts began to wander, and flashes of memories came unbidden to her mind. Each memory staying for only a moment, but seeming to last forever. Memories of her mother and father, of her home, the sea, the stars. She was seeing stars, both through the eyes of memory and her eyes in the present. She didn’t mind them now, as they helped hide the hatred on the face of the beggar as he laughed at her.

Her mind returned to a memory of her father, who was telling a younger and happier her, one of her very favorite stories. It was the story of the birth of man kind, how God had formed the woman from the rib of the man, and how the man himself had been formed from the dust. God had breathed the breath of life into the man, filling his lungs for the first time. She longed for that same air, as she lay there unable to take the next breath her body so desperately needed.

Her attempts to free herself from the beggar had almost stopped now, her face lay motionless in the dirt. Sensing the end was near, her attacker shifted his weight, driving his knee mercilessly into her ribs as his manic stare focused on her nearly lifeless eyes.

Somehow though, she could suddenly breath again. Her mouth drew in a lungful of air, and choking on the dust, she coughed it back out violently. The beggar, eyes wide, was blinded by the dust forced from the road by her cough. He jerked backwards, wiping at his eyes with his hands.

It wasn’t much of an opening, but it was enough.

She rolled away from the knee that held her down, instinct taking over as she gulped in another breath of air, her heart racing and lungs burning. As she stumbled to her feet, the black began to fade from the edge of her vision, and she ran back the way she had come. She could hear voices now behind her, but she didn’t dare to stop until they faded away. The tears had returned as she ran, and now she couldn’t see through them. She turned down a small alleyway and was forced to stop herself with her hands as she nearly ran into the wall in front of her. She sank down with her back against the wall, crying uncontrollably into her hands.

Shaking, she wept. The events of this morning completely forgotten in the shock of the attack. She could still feel his hands on her shoulders, his knee in her back, the crushing pain in her rib. Her head ached from where he had first hit her. She was unable to focus her thoughts on anything but the cruel hissing words of the beggar. They screamed over and over in her head, as she fought to regain control.

She was filthy. She was worthless. She deserved death.

to be continued…