Escaped

                                             ESCAPED

I am absolutely exhausted after playing with my friends. I had been yearning to pen down all about my life and feel disposed to do it, today itself. It is not going to be a cake walk because I have never, till date, spoken out loud about the subject even to my friends. Not because they would not understand me but because… you will know why!

To begin with, let me familiarize you with my background. I am an orphan 23 who was bought by some couple from California when I was a little. They complimented my “beautiful” hazel-green eyes and told me that this was why they had chosen me. They took me home with them and I entered into a whole new world, a reprobate world.

Everything was just fine initially but the ill-treatment started off when they had the second child, or rather the first, according to them. Being the elder one, I was naturally expected to help my “mother”. As the days passed by, the help turned into full-time work. Things went to the extent that I was told to not go to school and eventually I was nothing more than a house maid. While trying to put up with their impudent behavior, I stepped into my teenage and this brought with it the worst predicament of my life and left me crestfallen.

Their libertine son started to make inappropriate advances towards me and finally, one day, while the mother was away, he laid his hands on me. Despite being the victim, ashamed as I was, felt the need to hide it. This encouraged his evil intentions even further. Finally, when I refused to give in to his insatiable demands, this bastard complained about my not working properly and turning into a freeloader.

The mother got determined to set me straight and so, every day after this incident, she reprimanded me for every little thing and ended up bashing me severely a couple of times in a day. My head was thrashed into walls, with shoes or sticks, or sometimes even a chair was thrown at me. Absolutely insensitive to my endless pleading to stop, she kept at it even while I was wriggling with excruciating pain. Nobody came to my aid. My physical injuries got better and then got worse and then better again, but the severest ones were on my heart, my poor little aching heart.

After I turned 20, I tried to elope from my “home sweet home” abound in crooked people but I failed miserably. I was caught by the father; tied to the bed and given three rounds of whipping, two by the man of the house and the last by his wife. They pulled my hair out, twisted my legs and placed a hot iron on my bare stomach. In spite of my wretched condition, their savage son did not spare me and tormented what was left of my body in his own wicked way.

I picked up my shattered pieces and reiterated to myself, “Life has to move on.” It did go on, but amongst the same ruthless people. Gracious Lord sent no angels to help me out of the situation and I found no solace in my tears anymore. At 23, I slapped the mother as she called me the daughter of a slut and this infuriated me beyond expression. Not like she had not called me names before that day, but hearing this awakened my sleeping pride.

Even a considerable amount of beating did not balm her searing ego. Thus, she humiliated me further by dragging me by my hair to bring my face near dog food kept in a dish outside the house.  Its peculiar and disgustingly bad smell made my stomach churn and I vomited right in the dish. She sneered triumphantly and pushed my face into it. Feeling sufficiently avenged, she kicked me in the buttocks, went inside and banged the door shut. Disgraced and slighted multiple times, I picked up my head after a few minutes. But hey…I suddenly realized that she had left me alone, unbound and open to explore the world.