Where Teodora Began Her Walk

Nothing remains here but the house. There are no secrets left to unravel; no stones left unturned. The well has drained all its water. Even the air seems irrelevant.

I begin here, where it all started—that long walk from this house to that prison. The walker, someone decidedly not me, her footsteps I will never claim to follow. And yet as I stare at the brick lining the walls of the house, the chairs and tables that may or may not be in their true positions, the sink that is as dry as the dead skin on my foot, I can't not feel what she might have felt leaving these doors that morning (or was it evening?), guardia sibil, perhaps, holding her on both arms as she took the first steps of what would be a thousand more.

This is the mouth of the devil, the entrance to his throat. And I put my head inside it willingly this morning, looking at its gums, examining molars, canines, tonsils.