Red letter [Writer's contest]

Solitude, a form of aloneness is sometimes beautiful in a calm, unruffled scenery. A skinny, dark girl walking along with other thirty people including children at the park in Marina found a lone bench and sat letting out a low sigh. She stared at the water front blankly for a long time and suddenly opened her purse and fished out a pen and a purple book. Biting her lower lip at the corner, she began to scribble furiously.

19th of November, 2014

Reality is something like an individual's personal perception of an experience or situation. Besides the fact that man was made such a forgetful creature, there are times he doesn't forget. In fact, a lot of times, he coats the truth in so many colours, it becomes something else. So, i write this not to get attention, or even sympathy. I just want to strip off of everything on me and remind everyone including myself that bad things happen to real people.

You see, it's been nine tough years of bearing this burden and it's labour time, to get it all out. Like an onion whose several faces you only see after layers and layers have fallen off, here's the part that stings my eyes the most.

Some things and people are just so evil, everything they touch goes to die. One evening, some nine years ago, I had walked halfway to my dorm from the library with my friends when i remembered the sweater i had forgotten. It belonged to a rather impatient roommate and i had borrowed it because i had to sketch it for an assignment. I really had to rush back to the library as it was expensive, despite my friends' warnings about the crazy boys that recently got transferred to our school.

I shrugged and reminded them of the patrol officers of the night and we said goodbyes. What had made me most reassured was the recent "crackdown on bad boys and girls" by the School Authorities. Rushing back at light's speed, i found it in no time and began the race back to the dormitory. Then, i heard them. Their running feet sounded like a million horse hoofs and guess what?  They were coming at me like a hungry pack of wolves that found a lone deer during famine.

I ran like death was chasing me hotly, i ran even when my breathe threatened to fail me terribly. But they were faster than i was and in a flash, i felt cold, rough hands under my shirt grabbing my breasts even as i ran. I was still running blindly with tears in my eyes, saying solemn silent prayers because fear had eaten up my voice and i couldn't even let out a welp. I swear i knew it was an apocalypse when i tripped over a huge stone and fell flat. I tried to crawl but fast hands pulled me, and fondled my butt.

As fast as the rest of this ghoulish story happened, i remember it all like the breakfast buffet i had this morning. My blood soaked sanitory pad went off right after my underwear. Then, five, six or ten fingers went in and out of my inner thigh like twenty times. Tears had stopped flowing at this part, i did not feel anything at all.

Some five months after, She was tucking a yellow flower in her afro for the second time and continued reading to the audience at the Kick against rape and assault themed conference:

"I have not felt anything after that night besides nightmares that remind me of what happened".

She closed her purple book, and walked slowly across the podium. She paused for effect, stared steely at the quiet people in front of her with a new kind of emotion in her voice, she said:

I didn't report, because i was going to get punished for going back to the library and for also getting molested because "only bad girls got touched". But Today, I am not bitter, I'm only angry and bitter towards the people that try to end the fight against injustice and oppression. I'm angry at a system that punishes victims and lets the guilty walk free. And my biggest grievance is at the men and women that insist stories like these are myths.

I know i will feel again with wonderful people like you in my life. Thank you for having me.

NAME: MALIKAH MARYAM