He met her in Italy
while on vacation
from his hectic life in the US.
She was an Italian beauty;
he couldn’t believe
his luck.
A hotel worker
warned him, “She is
la strega, the witch”
he said.
Inwardly, he laughed
at the foolish superstition
and fell in love with
his Italian beauty.
He quit his job in the US
and moved to Italy to
be with her forever.
But he soon saw the evil in her
when she put a curse on a kid
who bumped into her.
The kid died immediately.
She laughed upon
seeing him dead in the street.
After that, he told her it was over
and he was leaving her,
even though he thought
the death was a coincidence.
She screamed a curse at him,
when he was leaving,
and he laughed at her
going out the door.
On the plane flight back
to America, the plane
hit some air pockets,
and for a crazy few moments
he wondered if the
plane was going to crash
because of her curse.
The plane never crashed.
He chided himself for
being so silly when it
landed safely in the US.
When he got home that night
and went to sleep,
he saw la strega in a nightmare
burning him with the fires of hell.
He never woke up
from that nightmare.
When the police found
his charred remains,
they reported he died
from the rare
spontaneous combustion.
Bob Boyd
