Once there was a girl who always wore a green ribbon around her neck. Her best friend was named Alfred. He always asked her why she wore the ribbon, but she only shrugged, saying it wasn’t important. The girl grew up and fell in love. She fell in love with Alfred. He watched her ribbon very closely and even asked to touch it, but the girl refused. After they were married, Alfred said, Okay , now you can stop all that nonsense with the ribbon. But she didn’t respond. She just hung her head. In their most intimate moments she could just catch him, watching the rinbon from the corner of his eye, as if sleepwalking. She became preganant and he forgot about the ribbon for a time. She, too seemed to have outgrown it, feeling her cheeks burn red when she accidentally brushed it with her hand. She was going to be a mother to a daughter. The child grew and grew inside her. She kicked and turned as if listening to her mother and father. Alfred again asked , why do you wear the ribbon. But she only turned over , as if in sleep, and felt the gentle tug of childbirth beggining. We share a child, she thought , if not now, when ?  She had already lost so much agency over her own body that she could not bear to give it up. The child came and she took to the woman’s breast and nursed, all the while she shoo’d the little hands from about her neck.  She grew pale and her eyes grew large in her face. They continued on in this way until one day her husband rose from his chair and without a word, he grabbed for the ribbon. She backed away from him, angry and terrified,  but he persisted. He did not stop until the ribbon, wet and warm with blood lay on the floor. In this version of the story, the woman lives on but goes the rest of her life without speaking a word. She grows stooped and grey. Her husband begins looking for girls in town with ribbons around their wrists or ankles.