Monday, November 01, 2004

Prologue

PG-14

The sky may be dark and pitch black, and the moon might have been glowing brightly, and the stars might have been twinkling merrily, but the sky was lit up, the moon was forced into the background, and the stars were wiped out by the overpowering light pollution with its many streetlights and tower lights. Car lights sweeped the streets; sidewalks were adorned with the outdoor cafes of restaurants. And standing on each dark, dark corner of the streets stood a prostitute, of varying ages and sizes and varying types. Many were dressed flauntingly and tauntingly so. In the cool but not chilly weather some of the corner ladies were wearing sweaters, which were generally worn as their only layer of clothing for the upper half of the body.

Amongst one of these, a young woman stood. She seemed to be more than 20 years of age. And she was looking for money. Money off which she could survive on for maybe a few days. She knew how much she was giving up, but sometimes life demanded terrifying sacrifices.

And then she saw him. Her first prey. She walked prettily up to him with great suggestiveness, and half an hour later she found herself in a warm dwelling. At least she would have a place to sleep, and with the pay she would have things to eat as well...

This practice the young woman kept for a few years by now. Being attractive was a plus in this profession, especially, if it was your only profession.

The woman now waited in anticipation on her corner. Who would she tease next, a newbie or one of her regulars? As long as he paid well, it mattered not to her. All men were the same. All they wanted was a body, a body like hers, in which, with the right amount of payment, could do as they pleased. And this is what made it so easy for her to earn a living off of.

Lost in thought, her ears suddenly picked up the sound of soft footsteps creeping up behind her. Her mind suddenly went to red alert and proceeded to whirl around. She never had the chance, however. A big hand suddenly clapped to her mouth and nose, and an arm wrapped itself around her. Let me go! she screamed mentally. She fought and struggled as if she were in a straight jacket until she realized that something smelled vaguely of meadows and wildflowers. She had never dealt with anesthesia, but now, as it dawned on her, she was being knocked out. And knocked out she was, before ten seconds had passed.

~*~

She woke up in the middle of the woods somewhere. Sunlight was streaming through the treetops and exposed her naked and shamed body. Desperately she looked around for the mere clothing that she had been stripped of, and she found them in a small pile next to hers, ripped and torn to pieces. No good. The beleaguered woman felt dirty and violated to no extent. As much as she tried rubbing all the dirt and awful feeling off, the feeling remained. Although she had slept with many men, she did not love any of them and had doubts about her profession, but ignored them until now.

And now was the time to cry. Now was the time for her tears to be born in her mascara-covered eyes, live on her powdered cheeks, and die on glossy lips, to be tasted by her impure tongue. "Get it...get it off..." she sobbed, still futilely trying to somehow rub off that icky feeling on her arms, legs, and everywhere else. She tried rubbing her embraced skin off, tearing her finger-combed hair out, spitting out the caressed feeling in her mouth, and all to no avail. She finally broke down and lamented over her predicament. She got herself into this mess, and she knew it. She wished she never sacrificed her most precious possession to enter this.

Broken, she attempted to make with what she could. She wanted to die and hide her shame, but she had little strength to. So she had no choice but to live, because death was an understandably considerable distance away. But there was not going to be any life in her, doomed to walk the boundary separating life from death.

But she was not friendless. She managed to find someone who decided to take her in for a short time only. But her friend convinced her to report to the police and visit a doctor. Within a few days a fingerprint was lifted off her, and two days later a man was found with a match. When she received news of this she thought up of many terrible things she could have said to him, the many opportunities to berate him to make her feel better. But she knew in the end it would never take away that awful feeling that enveloped and tormented her day and night. Still, she wanted to do something. And when she decided that she would go and visit him in jail, she suddenly began to feel nausea, even though she did not drink or eat anything in the past two hours. Five minutes later she tasted bile in her mouth. She rushed to the restroom and vomited in the toilet, rejecting the gross impurities of her past.

Days later, she repeatedly experienced vomiting and nausea. Foods she normally hated she suddenly started craving. And it dawned on her that something unexpected was on the way. But she wanted to make sure. When she held the small test in her trembling fingers a few hours later, she found a result she dreaded: pink.

~*~

It was in the hospital room when she received news that he was sentenced to almost life imprisonment for twenty-two counts of rape and seventeen counts of first-degree murder. But this news had no visible effect on the woman, other than to be caused painful contractions and dilating hips.

In a few minutes the labor started. The woman was blinded with pain and was focused on only one thing: push. The four-letter word clearly outlined itself in her mind, and her ears rang with the many voices all saying the same command. Her breathing went up, and so did the amount of sweat pouring down her back and neck. Her hair clung to the sweat, and she hated it. She despised it all: her drunken parents, the orphanage, the man who dressed her richly and taught her how to please. And now this.

After an eternity of pushing, the suffering was over. The doctors wrapped up a bundle and put it in her arms. They proudly announced to her what the particular thing was: a baby boy. He was crying, with enough tears to fill up an eternal spring. Just as she was, on the inside. Tears of anguish, of shame, of hate. Anguish at the choking up of her life. Shame of her nudity. And hate for the one that raped her and left her in the woods. But here was this baby. An innocent babe with no knowledge of how truly dark and evil this world was. And she wished with all of her scarred and shattered heart that she could prevent this little babe from ever knowing what he had just entered.

But she knew she did not have the ability to do so. And with a soft apology, she gave up on the little boy before she had a chance to protect him as a mother should. She loved the bundle, but she knew she could not care for it well. But she was too selfish to give him up for adoption. She screwed up on her job as a mother before she was given the full task. The boy would simply have to suffer, although, she reasoned, he would never suffer as much as she would, that she could hope for.

But the boy indeed suffered much, much more than his mother ever did.

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