Twelve years can seem like an eternity.

It has been twelve years that I have been afflicted.

The blood pours out of me like a geyser; staining my clothes, soiling my bed and draining my energy.

I am considered unclean because of this affliction.

I am an outcast and shunned.

It is like a living death.

If I had committed adultery I would receive punishment. I would be stoned.They refuse to lift a stone against me.

How I wish they would. Death would be a welcome comfort.

The villagers instead attack me with insidious weapons.

The weapons which don’t bruise the body but murder the heart.

The children taunt me with nicknames. The latest nickname was “bloody” Mary.

Little bastards, I would slap them if I could lift my arm.

The villagers avert their gaze as I stumble past them. Some of them cross over to the other side as if I have leprosy.

My skin is pale, my brain is in a fog and my body feels like a limp noodle.

My life was different before this horrid disease caught hold in my body.

It was paradise compared to this hell.

* This is a fictional adaptation of Mark 6.