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.I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.And then I waited for whatever was going to come next.When I sensed it was near morning, I crept out of the room and headed toward the showers.I hoped the rest of the compound would still be asleep.I needed just a little more time to myself.I turned the water as hot as I could get it.It burned, and I found comfort in the pain.It was strange that sitting in the shower, the blazing heat causing my naked skin to erupt in blotches of red, I thought of Emma.My sister.The girl my father said was filled with compassion.What were those last moments like for her? Did she cry out? Did she ask for me at all? Or was it all about him? Did her eyes simply close or did her body lurch, fighting against the darkness that was attempting to claim it?My heart began to speed up, and I leaned against the wall of the shower.Breathing in and out.In and out.In and out.The letter made me weaker, not stronger like my father had hoped.It would be so easy to just cry, to give in.In frustration I slammed my head against the cement wall.The pain vibrated from my head down to my toes.And I liked it.My heart stopped beating so wildly.I could focus on this new pain.I threw my head back again into the wall.And again.And again.Again.Again.Again.My head was throbbing.I reached my fingers to the back of my scalp and found blood.Always blood.When I arrived at work, my head still throbbing from the morning, Gwen was waiting.She looked me up and down.Whatever she saw, she was not impressed.I knew she could find no fault with my appearance; I’d made a point of ensuring my uniform was perfect.No wrinkles.No dirt.No sign of the laziness that consumed the people of the compound.I was perfect.With a heavy sigh, my supervisor turned and began to walk down the hallway.When I didn’t follow, she snapped her fingers at me without stopping to make sure I understood her directions.She knew I would follow.She knew I would have to.We didn’t speak to each other as we climbed the marble staircase to the upper levels of the Templeton mansion—the servants’ quarters.Women, girls, who had received two slash marks were forced to live at Templeton.While I could go home to my family, or lack thereof, every night, the double-slash girls had to serve out their sentence twenty-four hours a day, six days a week.One day for rest, of course—that is what the Bible demanded.I was still unsure what happened when one received the third mark.When we stopped, my supervisor pulled a skeleton key from the pocket of her skirt.It struck me as odd that the doors of the servants’ quarters were locked from the outside, as if one of them would try to escape.No one would be that stupid.If a girl ran from her punishment and life at the compound, the next oldest female in her family would not only have to finish the remainder of her sentence, but would be punished for the new transgression as well.Besides, the minute someone left, the council’s promise of protection was null and void.In the early days of my life at the compound, back when my mother was still alive, a group of women and Henry ran off.It was before I knew him.The women were unhappy with the council’s system of punishment—why should the females be forced to serve for the sins of all? Why must we be responsible for the morality of a people who just didn’t give a damn anymore? At the time, I remember asking my mother why we didn’t leave with them.She asked me if I knew where to score some booze.She didn’t give a damn anymore, either.Three weeks later, the council found the bodies of these women.They had been attacked.Barely identifiable.The council was unclear if it was Easterners or the Isolationists—men and women who had run into the darkness of the forest before the construction of the compounds—were responsible for the deaths.Sure, it’s terrible.The whole system.But the funny thing about mankind is we have a natural need—a natural will to live.So many of us would rather have a life of nothingness than risk not living at all.And the council knows this.As the click of the door unlocking stirred me from my recollections, I noticed my supervisor staring at me.Something about the look on her face, the weariness of it, caused me to take a step back.What was waiting behind that door?“Now you listen to me, girl.When we go in there you are not to say a word.Nothing.You will not speak of this to anyone.If she says something to you, you will ignore her.Do you understand?”I nodded.Somehow I couldn’t find the courage to speak to this woman as we entered the room.Lying on the bed was a young girl with her back toward me—the two glaring red slash marks standing out against the pale skin of her neck.She was curled into a ball, her hands pressed against her heart.Spots of blood covered the sheets.As I stepped farther into the room, I began to see how wild this girl looked.Her nightgown barely clothed her body, and she made no attempt to cover herself as we approached.“Help me get her up,” Gwen commanded.As my hands made contact with her arm, the girl shrieked.She began to blindly lash out, hitting me in the arms.“Calm down, child,” I heard Gwen say from somewhere in the darkness.“Damn it, girl! Make yourself useful and help me hold her down!”I applied as much pressure to the girl’s body as I could muster.I was barely able to hold her in place as she continued to squirm with a force that seemed unnatural coming from someone so small.How old was this girl? She couldn’t be sixteen.And yet one was not allowed to take on someone’s punishment until she was of age.My supervisor pulled a syringe from her pocket and without hesitation stuck it into the girl’s arm.I felt her body begin to convulse.Tears ran down her face and she attempted to yell out, but all she could do was grunt.Slowly, the girl became still.I could hear her breathing return to normal.She was mumbling something as the contents of the syringe lulled her to sleep, but it was difficult to make much sense of it.“Stay with her.Don’t let her move.I will be right back,” my supervisor said coldly.She was beginning to be a mystery I knew I would never want to understand.The girl continued to mumble, and I felt the need to hear what she was saying.Maybe it was my endless fascination with other people’s pain, my constant need to know I was not alone in feeling the world offered me little else.I sank to my knees and leaned closer to the girl.Without warning, she clamped her hand onto my arm.In her grip existed a strength that didn’t seem possible.“I thought I said no,” she gasped.“I thought I said no.”She began to cry again.I tried to pull my arm from her grip.I knew my supervisor would be back any minute, but she held on tightly.She kept muttering the same words over and over.“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”My supervisor stared down at me with contempt.I couldn’t find my voice.I yanked with all my strength, stumbling and landing on my backside.“Get up and help me wash her,” she snapped, throwing me a rag.I felt uncomfortable as I helped my supervisor undress the girl.The sight of her nakedness caused my skin to erupt in patches of heat.I couldn’t imagine ever being so vulnerable.The girl had slipped into unconsciousness; I wondered, had she been awake, if she would have protested our actions.Her words still rang in my ears: I thought I said no.Her body was so marked up, the attempt to destroy it, own it, rewrite it so painfully obvious.I wanted to ask what had happened.But I couldn’t speak.I helped to clean the blood that was smeared on the insides of her thighs.I wiped down her arms that appeared to be covered in newly formed bruises.I washed her neck, which was strangely covered with bite marks.I cleaned it all away [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.And then I waited for whatever was going to come next.When I sensed it was near morning, I crept out of the room and headed toward the showers.I hoped the rest of the compound would still be asleep.I needed just a little more time to myself.I turned the water as hot as I could get it.It burned, and I found comfort in the pain.It was strange that sitting in the shower, the blazing heat causing my naked skin to erupt in blotches of red, I thought of Emma.My sister.The girl my father said was filled with compassion.What were those last moments like for her? Did she cry out? Did she ask for me at all? Or was it all about him? Did her eyes simply close or did her body lurch, fighting against the darkness that was attempting to claim it?My heart began to speed up, and I leaned against the wall of the shower.Breathing in and out.In and out.In and out.The letter made me weaker, not stronger like my father had hoped.It would be so easy to just cry, to give in.In frustration I slammed my head against the cement wall.The pain vibrated from my head down to my toes.And I liked it.My heart stopped beating so wildly.I could focus on this new pain.I threw my head back again into the wall.And again.And again.Again.Again.Again.My head was throbbing.I reached my fingers to the back of my scalp and found blood.Always blood.When I arrived at work, my head still throbbing from the morning, Gwen was waiting.She looked me up and down.Whatever she saw, she was not impressed.I knew she could find no fault with my appearance; I’d made a point of ensuring my uniform was perfect.No wrinkles.No dirt.No sign of the laziness that consumed the people of the compound.I was perfect.With a heavy sigh, my supervisor turned and began to walk down the hallway.When I didn’t follow, she snapped her fingers at me without stopping to make sure I understood her directions.She knew I would follow.She knew I would have to.We didn’t speak to each other as we climbed the marble staircase to the upper levels of the Templeton mansion—the servants’ quarters.Women, girls, who had received two slash marks were forced to live at Templeton.While I could go home to my family, or lack thereof, every night, the double-slash girls had to serve out their sentence twenty-four hours a day, six days a week.One day for rest, of course—that is what the Bible demanded.I was still unsure what happened when one received the third mark.When we stopped, my supervisor pulled a skeleton key from the pocket of her skirt.It struck me as odd that the doors of the servants’ quarters were locked from the outside, as if one of them would try to escape.No one would be that stupid.If a girl ran from her punishment and life at the compound, the next oldest female in her family would not only have to finish the remainder of her sentence, but would be punished for the new transgression as well.Besides, the minute someone left, the council’s promise of protection was null and void.In the early days of my life at the compound, back when my mother was still alive, a group of women and Henry ran off.It was before I knew him.The women were unhappy with the council’s system of punishment—why should the females be forced to serve for the sins of all? Why must we be responsible for the morality of a people who just didn’t give a damn anymore? At the time, I remember asking my mother why we didn’t leave with them.She asked me if I knew where to score some booze.She didn’t give a damn anymore, either.Three weeks later, the council found the bodies of these women.They had been attacked.Barely identifiable.The council was unclear if it was Easterners or the Isolationists—men and women who had run into the darkness of the forest before the construction of the compounds—were responsible for the deaths.Sure, it’s terrible.The whole system.But the funny thing about mankind is we have a natural need—a natural will to live.So many of us would rather have a life of nothingness than risk not living at all.And the council knows this.As the click of the door unlocking stirred me from my recollections, I noticed my supervisor staring at me.Something about the look on her face, the weariness of it, caused me to take a step back.What was waiting behind that door?“Now you listen to me, girl.When we go in there you are not to say a word.Nothing.You will not speak of this to anyone.If she says something to you, you will ignore her.Do you understand?”I nodded.Somehow I couldn’t find the courage to speak to this woman as we entered the room.Lying on the bed was a young girl with her back toward me—the two glaring red slash marks standing out against the pale skin of her neck.She was curled into a ball, her hands pressed against her heart.Spots of blood covered the sheets.As I stepped farther into the room, I began to see how wild this girl looked.Her nightgown barely clothed her body, and she made no attempt to cover herself as we approached.“Help me get her up,” Gwen commanded.As my hands made contact with her arm, the girl shrieked.She began to blindly lash out, hitting me in the arms.“Calm down, child,” I heard Gwen say from somewhere in the darkness.“Damn it, girl! Make yourself useful and help me hold her down!”I applied as much pressure to the girl’s body as I could muster.I was barely able to hold her in place as she continued to squirm with a force that seemed unnatural coming from someone so small.How old was this girl? She couldn’t be sixteen.And yet one was not allowed to take on someone’s punishment until she was of age.My supervisor pulled a syringe from her pocket and without hesitation stuck it into the girl’s arm.I felt her body begin to convulse.Tears ran down her face and she attempted to yell out, but all she could do was grunt.Slowly, the girl became still.I could hear her breathing return to normal.She was mumbling something as the contents of the syringe lulled her to sleep, but it was difficult to make much sense of it.“Stay with her.Don’t let her move.I will be right back,” my supervisor said coldly.She was beginning to be a mystery I knew I would never want to understand.The girl continued to mumble, and I felt the need to hear what she was saying.Maybe it was my endless fascination with other people’s pain, my constant need to know I was not alone in feeling the world offered me little else.I sank to my knees and leaned closer to the girl.Without warning, she clamped her hand onto my arm.In her grip existed a strength that didn’t seem possible.“I thought I said no,” she gasped.“I thought I said no.”She began to cry again.I tried to pull my arm from her grip.I knew my supervisor would be back any minute, but she held on tightly.She kept muttering the same words over and over.“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”My supervisor stared down at me with contempt.I couldn’t find my voice.I yanked with all my strength, stumbling and landing on my backside.“Get up and help me wash her,” she snapped, throwing me a rag.I felt uncomfortable as I helped my supervisor undress the girl.The sight of her nakedness caused my skin to erupt in patches of heat.I couldn’t imagine ever being so vulnerable.The girl had slipped into unconsciousness; I wondered, had she been awake, if she would have protested our actions.Her words still rang in my ears: I thought I said no.Her body was so marked up, the attempt to destroy it, own it, rewrite it so painfully obvious.I wanted to ask what had happened.But I couldn’t speak.I helped to clean the blood that was smeared on the insides of her thighs.I wiped down her arms that appeared to be covered in newly formed bruises.I washed her neck, which was strangely covered with bite marks.I cleaned it all away [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]