The Girl of the Games

Hekatombion 7, 304 BC

I take a step onto the dusty ground out of my small stone home. The bright sunlight from the hot summer day burns the top of my black, curly hair and I pull the fabric scarf from around my neck up to cover my head. The air was heavy, sinking down around me, the wind completely still. My basket clicked against my side as I walked down the road, passing a few others who were coming back from the market- right where I was going. The heat made my feet heavy, hot bricks. Tall sandstone buildings line the dirt road, a light haze of dust hovering over the ground. Small windows dotted the buildings, most of the houses kept dark and windowless in order to keep them cool. Every so often, there was an opening for another road. Passing the city school, I thought of my brother before he died. He loved school, all the poetry and philosophy. He had so much to live for, so much to learn, but it all vanished that frightful day. My parents and brother had gone to Corinth for my father to trade there. I stayed with my aunt in Athens so that I could continue my secret studies. They told me that they'd be back in four months, but after the fifth, I realized that I stopped receiving letters from them and soon I was given the notice of their death. When my aunt died of illness, I was all alone. Only fourteen years old then, they have been gone for five years.

I continued to walk and finally reached the market. Keeping my face down to avoid being noticed, I picked up various fruits and vegetables, listening to other women conversing. The market was a hotspot for talking. Always new stories, always new information. The social quality of my one person house was very poor so it was just as well that I talk with others when I came out of the dark building.

"The gods are angry, Genivee, why else would the weather be so hot? Some of the bays are even drying up! It has to be hottest summer ever seen in Greece!" said a middle aged women with brown hair and eyes that wrinkled while she talked.

"Oh, Marsha, we must have our families give worship to Poseidon, the god of the seas in order to keep our husbands working. There won't be any fishing if Poseidon is angry with the people of Greece." replied Genivee. I slightly rolled my eyes and kept skimming along the olives and grapes. I found the gods to be silly to believe in. My parents never taught me to believe in the gods. There was no proof, at least that I knew to make me do so. I quickly went to the booth to pay for the food, gently tossing the money on the table, giving a thank you and whipped my head around in order to not get caught. Women under twenty one could not live alone and I did not have a ring to show that I had a husband. Since my parents died so young, they never picked out a husband for me. I would be alone for the rest of my life.

Hekatombion 8, 304 BC

My eyes shot open when the sun glared into my bedroom window, just like they had every other hour that night. No use trying to sleep anymore. I pushed the thin blanket down off me and wiped the loose strands of hair off my forehead that fell out of my bun from tossing and turning the whole night. After I crawled out of my bed, I took off my night gown and changed into a clean dress which I was running out of. It was time to go to the stream and clean my clothes- something I dreaded to do. But just as the market, it gave me a chance to do something and not just sit in my dark house alone. I didn't even have a friend in the world. No one could know that I lived alone -- no one. That's why my house was always dark, even at night. I could not light a candle and show someone that I lived here. I hid my age when I went out. I never talked to anyone except for thanking them for the food when I went to the market. I'd give anything to have someone to talk to, to live for something.

The stream was packed with people. It was so hot outside that the women were bringing their children here to play while they washed clothes. The clear blue water sparkled in the hot sun, the recent drought creating a bank of dry mud outlining the water. Stones lined the bottom, all different colors, and large rocks poked out of the water which we used to scrub the clothes. I found a rock near a cluster of women talking about the latest news of Athens. It was so hard not to pitch in my thoughts, but I couldn't. Not for another two years at least. Only when a women was 21 could she legally be in public alone. Even then, a women ideally should be indoors, never seen by public eye. These women were the wives of poor men with low paying jobs. Few poor women abided to the rules of society, for once the rich women being restrained in a way. I thanked my mother for her beauty and her ability to look older than she really was. She always had an older face, still pretty, just not youthful. Her skinny face and pronounced features took that youth away and was given to me, somehow.