Phara
Part V: Missing the Date
Trigger Warning: This short story, fictional work is Part 5 of VI and will have explicit details about pedophilia/familial child rape, abuse, poverty, and neglect. If this is something you think you should not be reading, please, do not continue.
I do not know how to fight.
No one has ever taught me.
My cousin Shay is here. She is older than me. 6 months. My Aunt Corinne dropped her off. Said Granny gonna watch us, make sure we mind. I mind. I mind just fine. I am a good girl. Mama isn’t home. Granny is pacing the floors. She keeps saying something about us “missing the date” and how “everything’s in God’s hands now.” Shay calls me a “tramp.” I do not know this word. I ask Granny, she smacks my face. Fire sits on my cheeks, stings me silent.
I do not move. I stand in front of her with my eyes focused on the pictures on the wall. I count the minutes before Mama’s second shift is over in my head. I am keeping time.
240 Minutes —
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
I adjust. “They missed the date. Everything’s in God’s hands now.”
Shay says this word to me again, “tramp!” She stomps her foot this time. She pats her hips. She follows me around Granny’s house with this word and I cannot swat her away. Fly! Fly buzzing in my ear with a word I do not know. I know it is not a nice one. I do not feel happy when I hear it. We did not go to Mama’s job for the kit. I feel something inside me, moving. Granny says I’m gonna be a Mama. I think everyone has forgotten that I am a ten-year-old girl.
Sissy from the third floor says State’s coming by tomorrow. Someone in the building told them what happened to me. I am holding my tummy. Aches and pains sitting on my fingers. I do not want to be different. I want to be normal. I remember normal. Normal was fun. Normal did not make people call you “tramps” and smack your face ’til fire comes. Normal doesn’t allow your Daddy to play with you in places you are afraid to play with yourself.
I want to go to the playground. I want to swing on the swings. Granny won’t let me. “Girl-child in your condition can’t be swingin’ on no swings!”
In My Condition?
I hear her. I sit in the brown chair. I sway my feet. I count some more minutes ‘til Mama’s second shift ends.
160 Minutes —
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Shay follows me to the sitting room. She brings that word with her. I am furious now. I feel the world sending all of its pain to me and I cannot stop myself from meeting with the devil. I tell Shay to keep her evil word away from me and I am screaming when I do.
She is still here. Her and her word. They are making fun of me and my condition. I watch her bounce around on Granny’s new floors. Her and her word. She pats her hands on her hips. She skips to a beat in her head that I cannot hear. She is in my face now. She has this word on the tip of her tongue and before she can say it this time, I ball up my fist and punch her dead in her mouth.
Blood spatters.
I am a bad girl, now. Shay yells. She is a walking crybaby and I am left to fend for myself in a home where Mama is still so far gone. I have forgotten how many minutes are left. Shay runs to Granny with her lips covered in red and her hands carrying spit. I no longer hear the word. She doesn’t share it with Granny.
Where do little girls go who are problems for everyone? Are they wanted elsewhere? Can someone carry them to safety without taking their love away? Is there a place for the good to come and take away all the bad?
