Unnamed
She is huddled in the corner of the room sobbing uncontrollably
She is just 13 and can’t fathom why she has to go through such pain
Her brothers are out there somewhere playing basketball, football or chasing after girls-who knows.
She musters the courage to approach her dad and stummers, ‘Hey dad I think I am unwell’
Her lawyer dad barely raises his eyes and only manages to say, ‘Well get ready I’ll take you to the doctors on my way to my meeting’
Where’s her mom? Sorry, I forgot to mention. Her mom died when she was barely a year old.
Her dad drops her off at the clinic and says to the stouch looking doctor with a huge beard and pearing eyes ‘ Hey doc, my daughter is unwell Am rushing somewhere, I’ll pick her up on my way back”.
She is terrified of the doctor, can’t get the right words to even explain her ordeal so she says (after the dad has left). ‘Can I speak to any female doctors?’
The booming, authoritative voice answer’s “Am sorry we don’t have any female doctors here.”
Dejected, she ends up saying she has a huge headache and some stomach pains.
Doctor checks her temperatures and prescribes some pain killers. As the pains in her lower stomach gets sharper, she bites her lips even more. She can’t take the meds just yet; she is 13 remember, her dad has to come back and take the meds from the pharmacy.
The pain gets worse on the drive home. But she has to put on a brave face and assure her dad that she will be fine.
She gets home locks her door and drops to her bed.
She is too afraid to ask her friends anything just yet, so she picks up her smartphone and opens google.
Unsure what to search, she types in ‘Bleeding and a lot of pain in the lower stomach’……
She opens up the first links and for the first time learns the third meaning of the word PERIOD.
She just had her first period and the first place she learnt about it is google.
You will ridicule her for the rest of her life for always seeking the answers to her problems online, but to her this was the only way she learnt how to combat the pain, buy her tampons and prepare herself for future occurrences of her periods.
*I still don’t know why i wrote this, i just remember waking up one morning with the words in my head so i grabbed my laptop and typed them. This has been in my drafts for a while but am finally sharing it.
