Nun from behind

by Sara Giudice

I’m sitting at a round, green table. My back touches the chair, but every other child in the room is hiding their face in their arms, foreheads touching the sticky surface of the tables; the children sitting with me are doing the exact same thing, but I’m not – I’m wondering why.

My older cousin is sitting to my right, and I still have broth in my little, pink Barbie bowl. I ask him why is it that he’s hiding his face. He tells me to shut up, but I keep on talking. I giggle a little, for I think everyone is doing something very silly: I swear we were just eating a second before, and now everyone has fallen silent under the invisible hand of... fear?

My older cousin has a very big, very buff best friend, and he’s sitting in front of me. When he moves his head and looks at me, I see terror in both his eyes. He looks like a frail, tiny kitten despite being the biggest boy I’ve ever seen.

Last thing I remember is the fact that I can’t move my broth-filled bowl to the side without spilling everything out, so I’m forever trapped in a never-ending loop of waiting for the nun to hit me in the back of my blonde, hairy head.

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Sara Giudice is a neurodivergent, queer author from Italy. They’re soon-to-be finished with their master’s degree in Theatre, dance, cinema and digital arts at Sapienza University in Rome. They’re specialising in matters of representation and diversity in media, a topic that they continue to navigate through their independent project, Crip 101. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.