NOT YOUR EMILY
Emily hated everything about rain. How it made the roads muddy, how the air smelled, and how people got disorganized anytime it deigned to fall. She just thought it was pride. The rain was very proud today she thought even as she got into her car after a tug of war with the umbrella she used as protection. Finally she was in the warmth of her BMW.
She never failed to update her garage each year with the latest models of cars. So long as it cost money, she got it. She was afterall referred to as 'The money magnet'. She smiled to herself. That was the kindest nickname people ever called her. Even her housekeeper called her a witch secretly.
As she drove she thought of how her thirty seven years had sped by, How she had amassed all her wealth and the many bridges she had had to burn. It hadn't been easy but then she had made it. She smiled ruefully. Her mother would be so proud if she could see her now. A tear slid down her right eye. She'd lost both parents before she could even speak. A fire she was told. She had been at the day care centre when it had happened and so was saved from the hideous incident.
Even before she stepped into the office she could hear the whispers, drawn breaths, feel the tension. They all saw her as a cold boss. She never smiled, she never went on trips with them and she never spoke much. She liked the way they kept their distance. She learned the hard way that humans were the worst species of harm one could ever encounter.
Oh how she scrubbed floors till she could see her reflection in them in her uncle's house. They had taken her in as soon as the fire ravaged her home and parents and from the beginning They were everything but kind. Even from a tender age, she hawked all over the street. Her uncle's children attended the best Montessori school in the neighborhood and wore clothes she only got when they had torn.
They also saw no need to employ a maid afterall They had Emily.
She grew up reading old newspapers and forgotten books just to learn English. If there really was a hell as the old preacher insisted there was, it was her uncle's house and she lived there.
Her uncle's wife made Cinderella's step mother look like a saint. She did everything in her power to ensure she never measured up to her children who by the way were duller than empty boxes. In all, her childhood was a memory she almost never cared to remember.
When people ajudged her cold, uncaring and frosty she never bothered to correct that notion. She knew she hardly made herself show any noticeable emotions. What good had all the emotions she'd shown as a child done to help her out of her predicament?
At 15. She had summoned enough courage and ran away. She slept in wooden sheds at the market at night and carried shoppers goods for them for whatever little token they could offer. Many would shake ther heads and ask what she was doing on the streets but no one really wanted to know the answer. Barely just to Satisfy their consciences by asking.
She sipped the tea her secretary brought to her even as she swivelled her chair around. Now she lived in so much opulence she didn't know what to do. Where would she ever even find a man who would match what she had or be humble and confident enough to accept everything she had and stood for?
She smiled and shook her head. The memories just came flooding back. How the Four men who had grabbed her one night as she was returning to her spot under the shed had manhandled her. Collecting her earnings for the day and raped her. They declared gleefully how they had been monitoring her movements for a while and how that night was their lucky night. She couldn't make a sound. Her emotions were already too dead to even feel pain if she was paid to. She never remained the same after that. She could only care less what happened to her. She was too busy trying to survive and looking for a way out of the torture that had suddenly become her life that she didn't realize her chronic sickness and swelling stomach was as a result of pregnancy till an old trader was kind enough to point it out to her.
The shell that was her life came to a stand still. 16 and pregnant. Funny enough she got used to the idea after many weeks and couldn't wait to hold the only thing she owned in this world in her arms.
But then, nature as usual had to be cruel. She had a miscarriage. Fainted in a pool of her own blood in the middle of the market while under the strain of a bag of rice. People scampered away. No-one wanted to answer to the police or bear the burden of caring for her or transporting her to the hospital. Well, that day was her day of Transfiguration.
Mr. Titus a Mexican on a market survey with his team saw her, picked her up, took her to the hospital and as they say the rest is history.
Her brilliance in school earned her so many scholarships abroad. Of course not after a lot of tutelage. Mr Titus bless his generous soul bequeathed all he had to her upon his death and made her his sole heir since he had no family.
Emily jolted back to reality. With the AC on high and her feet on the plush carpet, she thought of the life that was now hers. Her painful but successful transition, and how people would never know her story and continually judge her no matter what.
She smiled to herself, she couldn't change the past, It built her to be the woman she was now, maybe she could make a few changes in the present and the future. She sighed even as she signed another anonymous cheque for another orphanage home....
I feel Emily doesn't need to explain why she's like that to anyone,but also she could also try to relate to others.
ReplyDeleteI feel whatever happened in the past was a situation that led her to the future, so the past should be a by the way thing, there are different people in this world, because it was an unfortunate situation for her to have met uncaring, unloving and wicked people does not mean the nice people are no where to be found... She only got more of the experience from the wicked people, but still the past should not define the future, her becoming cold and unfriendly doesn't change the situation of the past rather it gives people the wrong idea of who she really is. Judging her could be wrong cos other people didn't go through what she had gone through so people are not expected to turn out the same way... We are the outcome of the experience we go through.
ReplyDeleteNice right up, keep it up
ReplyDelete