Wild Women: Are Stronger Than You

Chapter One

Once upon a time, there was humanity.

I'd heard this story often enough, told it even, but on this night, having to tell the story the Elders so praisingly spoke of, I knew something was different. The aged eyes of our tribe's children peered up at me as I continued.

Not only was there humanity, but peace. Unyielding peace.

This feeling, deep down in the midst of my bones, like ice slithering through my veins, freezing all it came in contact with, all due to this utterance of tradition, supposed truth, had my small lunch nearly spewing from between my lips.

Men and women lived in harmony. There were no wars, no killing, chaos seemed to be nonexistent.

Allowing that emotion to come out of me with my lunch, that sign of my truth, would not get me out of this Hell, this man-made chaos. Entirely male. Because they were the cause of all of this.

Women then decided that men were beneath them. Chaos was unleashed.

I would make them pay. Pay for the way they treated me and many others, the pain inflicted, scars I would proudly bare, and the fellow survivors who no longer wished to fight back.

Men were forced to kill women, children. Show brute force. They had no other choice if they were to survive.

They spoke of my weakness as if my kind were the only capable to lack in strength. These Elders, only men of course, and other men, they were the only ones who had a valuable opinion, they spoke freely. But I had always been gifted in discovering the truth.

Women had to be given a new place. Not beside men. Men now sat on thrones built on the graves of women they unwillingly killed.

The truth will set you free. They condemned us with the truth, killing us when it did not please them, but I had always been gifted in discovering the truth and it did allow some freedom to me. Freedom from their quick, silver-tipped tongues, allowing insults to flow like a stream. Not having to deal with the moving around rocks when they had so clearly ground us down into pebbles.

This left women to bow at their feet. Servants who do not deserve a last name until men found them worthy enough to carry their offspring.

One day though, it would set me free from this river disguised as men, no longer allowing it to drown my people.

Now we no longer call ourselves humanity, because humanity requires a gathering of sorts, of both men and women together, equal.

The Elders spoke me name smoothly when announcing I would be the one to tell the young the story of our ancestors on this day. The name my mother gave me, all she was able to give once they took her life. I'm her last imprint on this earth.

An equality of men and women that no longer exists because there is such a minuscule amount of women left. Whether to stand or live, so we call ourselves tribesmen.

Rose.

Rose is my given name due to my fiery-red hair that added to me unending beauty. Beautiful Rose fell from those silver-tipped tongues and I knew the lie at once.

This is why women must allow men to control, no, protect women. To care for us. For the children women have.

The lie the Elders told all to call me. Told men to call me. The lie, not my name, but the reason for it.

When a man has to harm a woman, it is out of love and a need for obedience. Without punishment, women may cause harm to themselves.

They are fast to forget that a rose has thorns, but I will help them remember.

These words are memorized by females so that we can tell the next generation as I am doing now. Allow them to understand and accept their future from an early age.

My mother did not name me for my beauty, but the unseen strength that could end worlds. That would end worlds.

The Elders wish for us to tell each other, to keep the peace. And so we will.

Women teaching women would allow for security that men could not force onto us.

The Elders were smart in this as they were well known for. Elders, truth-tellers, libraries with thousands of invisible books waiting to be opened and read. To spill their knowledge into the world.

But I guess even the Elders are wrong sometimes.