Jaya Oneshots and Stories

Lightning Strikes Twice

— 13 years old —

Dear Diary,

Being a housewife sucks big time.

I have not experienced it myself, but every time Kai and I visit our town elders, they have this exact scenario: The man sits. The woman serves.

Always. Every single time.

And the women never talk either. They sit still, look pretty, and only answer when being talked to. They cake their faces in makeup in order to look "presentable," put on their nicest outfits, make the best food (because, of course, the women always cook in those households), and rarely ever talk about their interests.

It's always the man who does the talking. He orders his wife around. "Get me some more coffee, Honey." That pet name literally has no meaning behind it. And ten times out of ten their "honey", who is eating her own food, puts down the cutlery, stands up, and walks out of the room to bring him what he wants.

Rarely ever do women receive a "thank you," and I swear I have never even heard a man say "please" either.

They take their women for granted. They treat them like they're lesser beings.

Because of what? Their chest? Their lack of having male genitalia? I don't get it. Other than what biology dictates, there is nothing a woman cannot do that a man can.

I don't want to be a housewife when I grow up. I want to be something. I want to work and earn my own money. Right now, I kind of am earning my own money already, but Kai doesn't really let me touch any weapons. He says they are too dangerous for me, and that I am too young to handle such things.

Psh. I may be two years younger, but my grammar is way better than his. I know the difference between "then" and "than". He doesn't. Loser.

Speaking of Kai, he is very supportive of my goals. He knows I will never be a housewife (because I may or may not have yelled at him once when he mentioned I should know how to cook for my future husband). Ever since then, he hasn't mentioned a future husband, which is great.

Because I will never settle for a man. Ever.

Men suck. Being a housewife sucks. Obeying sucks.

Putting down the blue-inked pen, Nya Smith closed her diary and sighed. Every time she visited the town elders' homes together with Kai, she would come out more annoyed and aggravated than before. She hated seeing what society had made women become, and she wanted to stay as far away from that as possible. Those beautiful, wonderful, creative, strong, intelligent women being degraded for simply being who they were...

Her only being thirteen years old meant nothing when it came to her perception of the world, what the people around her would one day try to turn her into.

She did not want that. She hated being associated with stereotypical things women were wired to do—cooking, cleaning, childcare, obedience to their husband.

So, for the longest time since she could remember thinking, Nya had tried to stay out of the way of all of that.

But, of course, she quickly realized that those were basic life skills. A person needed to cook to be able to survive. A person needed to clean their home to make it a livable environment. A person needed to take care of their child.