Philomena

Philomena sat on her sofa and wondered: is a name a destiny? She’d been named after a figure from Greek mythology. The Greek Philomena had been raped by Tereus, her brother-in-law. To keep Philomena from telling anyone of his crime, Tereus cut out her tongue. But Philomena had no intention of keeping quiet. She wove a tapestry telling of the abuse and sent it to her sister, Procne. Procne was so angry that she killed the son she’d had with Tereus. Tereus, in response, ran after the two sisters with an ax. As Philomena and Procne were running, they prayed to the gods to turn them into birds so that they could fly away. One sister became a silent swallow and the other a singing nightingale.

Now Philomena, the actual Philomena, had an unpleasant thought. The ancients believed that the soul eventually turned into a bird. Her bird had fled taking someone’s soul with it. But she didn’t know whose. She could only hope that it wasn’t her own.