Ruthanne Georgeson High

💎 •Shoulder to Lie On•

 

        Her feeble-looking but strong hands wrung the wet cloth between them. Water gushed from the squeezed cloth into the wide basin of soaked clothes beneath, on the floor.

Demi suddenly dropped the cloth into the water, causing a splosh as she swatted a mosquito at her ear in the dark, freezing dawn of a Tuesday. The windy air dripped through her light t-shirt, through her pores, and through the protective layers of her flesh.

She wasn't alone in the vicinity even though she could barely see anyone past the bounds of what the rechargeable lamp hung over a low branch overhead could show. She could hear very distinct voices, some carrying on from the night before, some starting the morning and even multiple moanings.

The domestic animals too had begun their exodus for the day, in search of the most important thing to them—food.

Demi's eyes held no vigour, her spirit no strength, and body workes numbingly against its wish. She was off to some immaterial place in her mind, a place where she was dozing in peace while her physical eyes remained opened. A yawned tried to fight it's way out and that snapped her out of her abstraction.

She shook her head. Stop it, Demi. Focus.

She returned alive to the present task and picked up the cloth she'd been rinsing. She threw it into a pail where other rinsed clothes are and took another cloth from the water again. Minutes later, she was finished and standing up, retying the wrapper at her waist. She carried the basin and walked to a short distance, threw the water in it away. She came back to the front of the old storey house having multiple rooms for rental where she lived with her step-family. Drums—two of which was theirs—occupied the sides of the house's front wall. She'd filled them with water she'd fetched the day before to the brim. Her neck still hurt with a faint ache from the bucket she carried on her head. For hours, walking to and fro a long distance. She went to the drum and took out water from it into the the basin she'd placed beside it. She took it back to the clothes she was washing, rinsed them again and began spreading them on a rope tied to two trees' branches. They were her step-family's clothes, excluding hers and Jola's.

Even though the older girl had refused to let Demi pack her clothes, Demi knew she'd still be hearing some bitter spits from her step-mum. She'd always be at fault somehow, anyway: when she cooked and Jola declined eating--Demi's a bad cook and ultimately will end up a bad wife.

When she wanted to sweep or do some house chores, and Jola stopped her or offered to help--Demi should have not yielded, what was she doing with all the energy she got from the food she eat? Meagerly meal, but never mind that.

Demi finished with the clothes when it was a quarter past five a.m and the morning light was creaking out.

–––

          She stepped out of the house and into the bustling interwoven streets of the ghetto at six-twenty a.m.

Hooligans and street urchins huddled at every corner, feeling up scantily dressed girls, joints, gins and local herbs in hands as their rambunctious voices boomed. Danfo buses sputtered past her every second. Her path was riddled with decayed bottles and tins, foils, slippers, rags and other nonsense that'd mixed up to bumped her feet incessantly. Everywhere was soiled, never dry even during the dry season. The sides and top of her pumps was caked with dirt, that she'd get to when she reached Ruthanne, she decided. Or she could always leave the house in flip flops and change to her shoes when she was out of the community.

There was a niggling sense of apprehension deep in her mind, her senses so alert to the tiniest sound - a mechanism had body had developed over the past years and she was now unconscious to its presence. She might be a kid of the slum, be one with it but it's nothing more than just a way of talking and the street can turn on her in the blink of an eye, making her a recipient of vile acts. No one fully trust another, is loyal to anyone, and all value survival most.

She was emerging from the ominous city behind her and to a respectable environment, partly safe, which connected to a major road where RGHS' school bus will waiting to take her. She reached the bus-stop in time to find the pristine and expensive bus coming towards her. Her body changed in reaction and stance the moment she climbed into the bus, shifting from the dangerous feels she was having externally to an absorbed internal feels of exposure. An exposure of every single thing about her. From background to dressing to emotions. There, in the bus, was bristling hostility that she could do nothing about. No way could she be robbed or rape but still she wasn't freed of issues and problems that buzzed after like flies after a rotten mango.

No peace anywhere.

She wasn't sure which she preferred.

Home or school.

It's laughable, how even amongst the least rich, there still a segregation and hate emanating. The other students in the bus riding with her obviously weren't rich to be ranked in the third level of the Gems Empire—they were taking the bus, are on scholarship—but there were they, judging her and casting her out with their looks. The adjusted the positions overtly and placed lunch boxes on the seats besides them.

What did she ever do to warrant such treatment? - Demi thought.

She rubbed a palm against the wrist of her other hand, brushing the bracelet with a love design she was putting on. She found Didi's eyes among the eyes staring at her as she walked down the aisle and mentally jubilated. The seat beside him was empty.

She walked over. "Hey...um...do you mind if I sit?"

He looked her over then faced the window, not saying a thing.

Demi gave little thinking to that, sat down right ahead because she couldn't bear standing anymore. At least there was no vibe coming from the . He was just undecipherable.

Shocking or not, trying to enjoy the scenery as the bus sped by and failing after, Demi slept with her head on Didi's shoulder, in an oblivious sleep.

-

I just had to get this out---I'm not satisfied with how it came out but, it can (always) be written again. I'd take months for me to post an update if I had to get it to my taste... and I don't want that. I want to move on with the story, be done with it and then come back to edit/rewrite it exhaustively.

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