No 2: PANDORA

PHOTO BY LUCIA AUERBACH

EVA RAMI

listen, honey. i just don’t understand. 

why am i being blamed when 

i was set up for failure? 

he said, don’t 

open the jar. and i said okay. 

and i wasn’t going to! 

contrary to popular opinion, 

my red lips do not 

hinder my intelligence;

i understand simple directions! 

i wasn’t going to 

open it, understand? i wasn’t going to,

you hear?

but, the big man, he wanted me to. it was 

all schemed, do you understand? 

he pushed the jar into my hands, his rough fingers 

scratching the soft skin above my knuckles. it wasn’t 

even pretty. why would i want to even touch

an eyesore like that? i told my husband, i said, 

honey, take that out, won’t you? how ugly it is! 

but, well, you know men. they aren’t the smartest. 

i doubt he even knew where the trash bags were! 

so listen, if he’d taken that shitty looking jar out 

to the trash like i told him too…we wouldn’t be 

having this issue. so then big man, yeah, 

the big man, he whispered in my ear, with his 

breath coaxing goosebumps out of my neck, 

he said, open the jar. and so i said, well okay. 

because mama said that girls are supposed to listen! 

so i did what i was raised to do: i listened to the big man. 

and then all hell broke loose. disease and misery 

flew out and laughed in my face and i screamed 

and the big man cackled then he ran off 

and my stupid husband was cowering in the corner 

and i didn’t know what to do

so i just closed the lid of that ugly jar, and then 

my dumb husband came out and said good god woman 

what have you done and i said shut up and he said 

don’t worry your pretty little head we can fix this

and i said how can you be sure and he said 

i have hope and i said don’t be stupid and he said 

be quiet and listen.