The First Time 11-Year-Old Marie Made a Choice
Choices.
Everyone was so afraid of them. Abhorred them. People were scared stiff at the thought of being wedged in a situation that would force them to make a choice, to single out only one among all the myriads of other options gawking at their faces. They were terrified of the hazy possibilities that might come after the choosing. No one, after all, liked to entertain the unknown, to mull over its precarious promises, its tantalizing secrets.
But not Marie.
Not eleven-year-old Marie, who loved sprinting across the vast, vacated roads of her tiny village, in a far-flung island miles and miles away from the mainland. She reveled in the sensation of the sweltering heat clinging to her bronzed skin, of the sweat trickling down her face, of her heart slamming against her chest.
But that was the threshold of her freedom.
Before she had the time to compose herself, her whole world toppled and spiraled down into the abyss the moment The Big Uncle intruded their lives.
The Big Uncle, with his yellow hair, pallid complexion — mottled with sunburn and pink blotches — potbelly, and towering height. Everything about him was jarring in this place, in a land where small, brown-skinned people roamed.
And for a long, long time after his arrival, it simply never occurred to Marie that it was plausible to formulate decisions of her own, to say no when she wished to, or to shriek when every core of her body exploded with pain.
The one time that she confronted her Mama, hinting at what The Big Uncle had been doing to her every time the two of them were left alone in the house, her Mama’s lovely face instantly contorted and flared into a bright scarlet before striking Marie across the cheek, telling her never to spout any lies again.
If you anger him, he will abandon us, and we will be hungry once more, Mama hissed. Do you want that? Every word was drilled into her brain, every word was a mantra, every word matched the pounding in her ears.
For many months, she endured it, her world suspended in a flimsy string, a string that The Big Uncle held gingerly between his stubby fingers, a string that he could slash into two with barely a smidgen of effort. She knew this, and it mortified Marie to know how helpless she was. It would take her hours before she could drift off into a lurid slumber, her pillows drenched with tears, her throat sore from trying to stop herself from weeping, her whole body smoldering and throbbing.
From day one of The Big Uncle’s arrival, his massive figure almost filling their door frame, his mouth twisted into a bloodcurdling smile, Marie had been stripped of the power of making a choice.
In fact, she never even knew it existed.
Until one fateful day.
Their house was swathed in an eerie silence when she got home from school, but somehow, she knew that she wasn’t alone. More importantly, she could also sense that something was awry. The hairs on her arms rose in a frenzied panic. The air was heavy and stifling, smothering her, tormenting her. Her every breath was laborious; and with every inhale, toxic seemed to seep into her pores, sand and grit to infiltrate her lungs.
She tottered around the house in a tiptoe, as stealthy and lithe as a feline.
Then Marie saw her younger cousin Leila backed up against a wall, her petite frame convulsing in fear. And there was The Big Uncle and his bulky shoulders, only a few paces away from her. Edging closer and closer.
Then it happened.
Marie didn’t have a name for it. But there was a blankness, like a spirit momentarily took over her body, then a blinding flash of clarity and fury. She was suddenly charged with something so strong, so otherworldly — permeating her with the conviction that she could do anything. It was invigorating.
Her vision was suffused with a haze of red. And then everything was a blur. The next thing she knew, The Big Uncle was already prostrate on the bamboo floor, a thick pool of blood ebbing away from him, trickling between the cracks and crevices in the wood. And there was Marie, seated on top of The Big Uncle, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing him with a kitchen knife that had grown slippery in the handle, the knife that she miraculously managed to snatch in the kitchen, despite the circumstances.
She remained in this position until dozens of people started swarming their home, her arm blazing in protest, but she relentlessly ignored it.
When the police motioned to approach her, to talk to her, Marie immediately erupted into a scream, the blade poised towards them in warning.
I will do this to him again and again, even if you arrest me, even if you kill me —
For the first time in her life, Marie had made a choice. And unlike the multitudes of others before her, she had not been crippled by fear.
On the contrary, she felt power coursing through her.
She was finally free.
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