The Waifs 🥀

＊ 5

20 minute read

🥀

"She is your what?"

          It was dark out later that long day and Spencer had just said the wildest thing.

Also, speaking of the wild, the house had become a jungle of humanoid apes snatching clothes, beating each other and their chests, screaming, whining and celebrating. Foreseeing this, Madam rid herself of the responsibility of sharing beddings and new clothes amongst us. The caretakers took care of that, while she disappeared into her evil lair.

In my ward, Miss Briggs barged in and dropped the fresh heap in her arms with a dramatic thud unto the scratched cement floor. And as the rabid girls were about to leap to possess their possessions, she exclaimed.

Miss Briggs said we were not to touch them until they were "blessed and sanctified". We ogled at her, while she ignored us and closed her eyes, "Let us pray."

I was the only one still lying in my bed, so she opened an eye and warned me with it, making me drag myself up. What is this, hadn't we just prayed this morning?

I would have been happy to join our circle silently and wait for her to finish droning on about His love, only if someone didn't try to hold my hand. About to shake Beatrice off, I realized everyone was doing it too. And to worsen matters, Mughead was the only other person with a free hand. I scoffed and shoved my hand into my pocket.

Bunkie sneered at me, dragging out my left hand and clamping it between her sweaty, bony fingers. She too closed her eyes and creased her forehead in concentration. "Yah, I don't like ya' either, but respec the Lawd."

I felt uncomfortable to say the least.

Our lovely caretaker thanked Jesus for a lot of things; things I didn't agree with and things I was confused by. Most strikingly, she thanked Him that we "found and have each other".

It was strange enough how today seemed like an ode to tragedy. But that seemed to illuminate this fact.

She led The Grace at the end as everyone joined in, and I unconsciously mumbled it too, because it was etched in my brain over time. For me, this was that point when you say things over and over, so mindlessly that it loses its meaning to you.

The solemn and reverence vibe had nothing on us, Miss Briggs would find out soon after. Defeated, she finally left us to brawl and argue about who snatched what first. Amused and watching, she perched on my bed. She sighed as she did, for even the hardest workers need a time-out. I sat beside her, waiting awkwardly.

Miss Briggs smiled at me with kind dimples. Her dark skin was oily from the dry sweat of today's work and her springy afro all over the place.

"Anger muffin dearest," she tapped my leg, and pointed ahead near the door, "That one over there looks like the perfect fit for you, don't you think?"

My eyes zeroed in on a black top strewn aside that no one apparently wanted.

I nodded and shrugged at the same time, then got up. And with no fuss whatsoever, I got a new top graciously paired with crisp navy baggy trousers. Maybe the Lord really was good.

"...so quiet, yet always so loud. Maia's a strange one," I hear her wonder out loud.

I smiled a little. If all else sucked, I was at least happy we, I, had her.

In what seemed like decades later but was really mere minutes, she shared out pastel coloured bedsheets and duvets. The pillowcases were not entirely useful because we didn't have pillows; she gave us anyway. "Stuff 'em with your old clothes," she suggested.