Hey! This is a short story I have written! I hope you can comment on it! I really wanna be a writer one day so your comments will really help me! Thank you!!
~Priscina~
Girl Power
I stepped on the parched land. Dry as a bone. It hasn’t rained. It hasn’t rained for months. The wells were empty. Not a single drop left. Dry as a bone. My throat hurt. I thirsted for water- for anything to drink. My mouth was dry. Dry as a bone.
I walked on the shrivelled, brown leaves. They crumbled under my bare soles. It was a familiar sight- the yellowed fields from the lack of rain- my way home. I’d ventured to the temple grounds today, bored of staying at home. Ever since my mother passed away, my father has been a grumpy man. Now, even more so with the hungry cattle and bare fields. He had nothing to do- the land could not be worked. A hungry man makes an angry man. We had nothing to eat. The landlord took our last morsel. We were living off the village store. Everyone in the village of Maekar were. At first, we scoffed at the idea of setting up a reserve. Of setting aside some rice when the harvest was abundant. Now, with our growling stomachs, the idea was appealing. We were glad that our elders had the foresight to see the need of storage. The fields were too dry to plough. The cattle, too thin to eat. We sold them for more rice but the drought was harsh and punishing and soon, our bought rice stock depleted.
“Pensri! Mā thī̀ nī̀!” Come here. My father wasn’t in a good mood- this was bad. Very bad.
“Khuṇ mī thī̀ dị̂ rạb?” Where have you been? “Cook dinner now! A- wut and I need to eat!”
I hung my head as I walked back to the wooden house. From a distance I heard the mellifluous voice of my cousin Saengdao singing “Mel̆d phụ̄ch”, a traditional Thai farmer’s song. Being the oldest sibling by ten years, Dao’s parents had no choice but to get her to do the manual labour. It was a common sight to see Dao pulling the cattle through the fields during the better months, when the yields were bountiful. She was my best friend, my confidante.
Her life was marginally better than mine. With a mother around, she did not have to do all the chores in the house. She only helped out while I’d no choice but to do everything. My mother had passed away just a day after I was born. As I grew up, I was constantly reminded that, not only was I the reason for the loss of my father’s wife and A- wut’s mother, but also that I was worthless. I was treated like a hostile, unlike Dao’s closely- knit family. Despite Dao’s freedom, she was still not allowed to go to school. Girls never went to school. At times, I felt so lonely. My brother and father were of the same mind. They believed in gender disparity. That girls were contemptible. They treated me like the dirt on their shoes.
I was once again at the temple grounds. I had to return before lunch or my father would blow his top. I was meeting Dao and another good friend here. Lawan was my other neighbour. Unlike me and Dao, she was not related to any of us by blood, but through the discrimination that we all underwent. She was very beautiful- she had inherited her mother’s big hazel eyes and skin like russet silk. Many boys in the village fancied her but the admiration was only external. Her family was similar to mine. Both our mothers had passed and our remaining relatives were all stereotypical. They did not try to break away from the ‘anti- girls’ notion.
“Hello S̄wy.” Hello beautiful. It was nice to finally be able to meet them at this soothing place again. The temple was our favourite haunt, a place where the three of us chatted. There was no one here aside from the occasional monk.
“Haven’t you noticed something recently?” Lawan muttered while looking down, her long eyelashes brushing her cheek. “Our fathers and brothers have become grouchier by the day.”
