Ùna: Like All & Like None

Chapter III

I was already out my window and under the night before my decision was fully processed. I did not want to go to the abandoned houses tonight. I just wanted to be. I had no drive to climb the trees or prance around. As I walked in the snow to my stash, I didn't even mind the sting of the cold snow. Its bite helped pull my mind off my stress. I unearthed my bag and realized I didn't even want to cover myself in all those layers. Instead, I only pulled out that wooden box. Tucking it under my arm I walked out deeper into the snow. I spotted a mound of snow that looked particularly clean and untouched. I walked to its center, my feet now completely numb, and just laid in it.

My body sunk into it. I moved the box to my chest, wrapping my arms around it. All my emotions felt heavy throughout my body. Sadness. The sensation of being trapped. But yet the words of my mother to be unwavered by the cage rang through my bones. Love. Love it became clear to me was the root of my pain. Not familial love, but romance. How many girls like me never got to experience that, girls denied the chance. An arranged marriage almost certainly made that impossible. There was only a one-sided choice in that.

I parsed through my memories of all the married couples I knew. I knew my parents were not in love in that romance kind of way. At least my mother wasn't. She loved herself and her easel all too much, such that there was no more room for a man in her heart. I had few memories of my father before he passed, and he. I think he did love my mother. The way he looked at her like she was magic. But what kind of love is that between two if only one feels that way?

Sprinkled through my memories were other couples that would sometimes visit our home for special occasions. They always seemed too formal, like some grey misery lay under the surface between them. I thought about the other people that lived in our town. Nothing of the few families I had seen stuck out. No blooming warmness emanated from any couple I observed in my life. I couldn't even recall a story being told to me as a child about sweet emotions flowing between a couple. But I knew it had to be a thing. Some instinctual knowledge in me could feel its edge. It couldn't just be some myth I imagined out of nothing. Love.

And that same instinctual knowledge in me yearned for my heart to feel its presence. Thats why I was so upset. Because it seemed like a large possibility that I wouldn't. I grasped the box tighter, pressing it into me. Its mysterious contents made my chest spin with whimsy. I fantasized about the woman who owned it. In my fantasy she felt love. The bottle was a perfume she wore to muse her lover. The little book was a spew of her fluttery emotions. The oily bar a gift from her lover to rub on her skin. The heart carved on the front was a symbol to those feelings. Even though I was just daydreaming about the box's history, I decided to take it as true. So that I could at least have some tether to what mutual romantic love is.

My face was eased as I gazed into the night sky above. But hot tears streamed down my cheeks. I didn't blink in their flows. Little snowflakes were sticking to my lashes as the coldness of the snow encased me. My small soul resting here. The sky seemed to suck upwards, and I could almost feel the roundness of the earth spinning through space. I felt even smaller. My tears in vain as the only witness was me and the dark night. The branches above me began to twist into a visual cage.

My flesh felt like it was gnawing at me. So cold, it was burning. I let it burn, contemplating further. My virginity. What was it anyway? I had always assumed it was some secret between my legs. I was taught from a young age that that was my most private area. But it didn't feel like anything special. It would ache once a month in pain when my courses would come. I had never sat and really thought about what virginity was.

I recollected the first time I heard my grandmother say the word. We were walking to the market. It was spring and we strolled down the road, banks of flowers on either side. I remember spotting two bunnies. One was on top of the other, their bodies jerking. I was worried they were sick and yelped for my grandmother to do something. I remember her disgusted scoff. Her hand grabbing mine to pull me away from the sight. She told me to look away, but I cried. So worried something bad was happening to them. In an annoyed tone she said, "they are breeding." I pressed her never hearing that word before. She scoffed again and with tight lips she muttered "they are making babies. And you? You are to know nothing of that any further. Your virginity is your prize."

Older now and having glimpsed other animals engaged in similar actions, I could piece together what they were doing. It was some kind of penetration that resulted in pregnancy. That must be what virginity is. A woman who had never been penetrated. Maybe that was my key to get out of this arranged marriage problem.

I traced one of my hands down my stomach. My fingers stiff at this point from the cold. Slowly I gathered the fabric of my nightgown, pulling it up over my thighs. As I exposed myself to the sky I moved my fingers down further. Nervously, they slipped down just to touch. I parted myself and ran a finger down the center. It was so warm and tingled just a bit. I could sense that past this threshold I could stick my fingers in. But I just couldn't. I was too scared. Ripping my hand away and pulling my nightgown back down, I pretended that never happened. I laughed slightly still monitoring the tree branches above. I hoped one would swing down and penetrate me. Pierce this stupid coveted virginity. "How vulgar", I said to myself, astonished at my own thoughts.

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After whom knows how long, I headed back home. My body crying for warmth. After slipping the box back into the bag and burying it in the snow. I made my way back to my room. My muscles were so stiff from the impeded circulation caused by the cold, making it difficult to climb back up. But I made it. Back into my bed I pulled the blanket tight over my face, so I could use my breathe to generate heat around me. I felt whispers of shame running over me. But I quieted it knowing that as always, the night kept all my secrets under the rug. Only I really knew what I did out there. And so, I drifted into sleep not concerning myself any longer with my future to come.