SHORT STORY COMPETITION - 1ST PLACE WINNER!

 

Dear Aria

By Farah Amod

19/11/2022
Dear Aria,
I find myself hesitant, writing this well deserved and long-awaited letter. My therapist suggested writing to my younger self in our last session and I told her it was a useless activity that would only waste my time. I guess that’s always been the problem with us, we’ve lived in fear of confronting our past. I don’t know where to start or what age I should write to you at. Now that I think about it, I’m sure you would have liked to hear from me at any age, I’m sure you would have liked to be heard and I’m sure that you would have really liked for someone to tell you ‘You’re not alone’.
It's 1998 and you’re six years old. Your country is four years into democracy after having Apartheid abolished but at this age you’re only mildly familiar with the term. That’s the beauty of children, innocence. It’s not that you don’t see the different colours of skin around you, but it simply doesn’t make a difference to your friend, your neighbour. All you know is that after school Nobuhle and Lee-Anne are bringing their scooters and you’re going to race down the driveway, feel the wind in your hair and live in that moment entirely, truthfully.
I suppose the downfall of childhood innocence is inexperience but that day you would painfully learn, in more ways than one. You’re soaring down the veranda which was terribly uneven when your scooter hits a bump and all you feel is fear, then a burn and then a sting. When your friends run over you realize that you have grazed your knee. Blood quickly drips down your shin and there’s a little bit of sand in your freshly exposed flesh. You cry quietly and hush your friends when they try to call mom and dad because you know you’re in trouble. You know that you’ve done something unspeakable, you’ve made a mistake.
An hour later your world has turned upside down. The birds stopped chirping and your friends have gone home. You stand all alone, naked, in the bathroom waiting for the tub to fill and wipe your tears away. Dad comes in and slams the door shut, “Are you happy now? You like ruining your legs isn’t?”. You whimper out an apology and your start trembling. “Come here” said dad but you were frozen in fear. “I said. Come. Here.” He spits out. He takes a bottle of savlon and empties it out onto your knee and you try your hardest not to scream. “Get in the tub” dad said to which you responsed just under your breath, knowing it was useless to even say, “but the water is too hot”. So dad picks your tiny body up and dumps you into the steaming tub and you let out a high-pitched cry that echos in the bathroom. “I told you to shut your fucking mouth” and then he grabs you by your arm, lifts you up and hits you. First on your small behind, then on your back legs and then on your back. Every time you fall in the water and your knee burns you get pulled up and hit again. Mom comes in which you know would give you a few minutes reprieve, “Why are you hitting her? The child fell it was a mistake”. “How can it be a mistake? Can she not see where she’s fucking going? Look at her leg! Which man will marry a girl with black knees?” I recall dad screaming out. They shut the door behind them to enter into a screaming match of their own. Which later that night mom would tell you, “It’s because of you that your father isn’t speaking to me”.
You’re sixteen now, a good ten years have passed. You’re moody, feisty by nature, and not yet sure of how to control it. Hormones are surging throughout your body, you’re battling with finding out who you are and home doesn’t help. Home is as chaotic as ever, you are always walking on egg shells with on mom and dad, you hate the weekends because it means you’ll see more of them and you wonder when you lie awake at night drenched in your own tears whether you will ever make it out of this alive. Whether we will be a strong, independent woman with a family of her own that loves her unconditionally and rarely fights or, will we be a shell of a person drowned by constant misery and ghosts of the past. A past that grew us up far too quickly.
Dad caught you speaking to a boy that you liked from school on your new BlackBerry Bold so naturally he smashed it. “You want sex from this boy huh? You know the rules in this house, no talking to boys!” He screamed. You know his ‘rules’ defy all logic because this boy wasn’t your boyfriend and you weren’t out having sex, it was a clean conversation with a few kind compliments that made you feel good about yourself. So you did the next worst thing in the eyes of mom and dad and made a logical point, “But dad, you let Zayn go clubbing and bring his girlfriends home and he’s only a year older than me. I’m not doing anything wrong”. Then you saw the look in your fathers eye, like when a bull sees red, and you realised you messed up big time by bringing your brother into this. “You little bitch! Are you questioning ME?” He screamed out. You fell to the floor. You clutched the side of your face as it went numb. Your heart was racing as dad loomed over you and administered the second, and the third blow to your young, fragile face. I remembered we just lay there with our burning hot body on the cold tiles, trying to understand what he was saying but the words were under water; unclear and faded.
At the hospital the Doctors say your jaw is broken to which your parents reply you had a nasty fall. Mom lectures you about how men and women are different and we can’t expect to have certain freedoms because it would ruin our reputation, “See all those girls Zayn is dating, he won’t marry any of them. He’s having his fun and sowing his wild oats because that’s what boys do. If you do that, when it’s time to get married, no man will want you”. After mom tells you how you’ve disgraced your father and let down the family she says that it’s best if you go and live with Dhaadi for a while, just until dad calms down. So you call your grandmother and ask if you can stay there for a bit and she retorts, “I don’t want to upset your father. He’s my only son. If you come stay here he won’t visit me on the weekends, maybe ask your Nani?”. I remember that we sat on that hospital bed feeling our heart shatter into pieces that would take another decade to pick up. We felt the rage of being an Indian girl in a conservative home where we will always draw the short end of the stick. We felt the sting of hopelessness in knowing how illogical those with power over us were. We wondered how the world could cater to men so unquestionably and we yearn for the power that comes with having a dick. We were broken, momentarily crushed.
Now that we’ve captured a few moments of what was truly a pattern of pain that spanned until our early adulthood, I’d like you to know what we only learnt much later on. You are not responsible for the lack of empathy and compassion shown by others including your own parents. The cruel things that people say are only a reflection of themselves. Internal wounds are just as real as external ones and
there’s no shame in asking for help when you need it. Your romantic relationships do not have to echo the dysfunction of your parents relationship. For a while you will suffer with anxiety, depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. None of which your family will ever take seriously. You will need to be careful not to fall into a victim mindset although you have been a victim of abuse. You don’t believe that men and women are equal however you do believe in equal opportunity for both and that makes you a feminist as well as an initial outcast in your family and in your community. Our parents didn’t do a very good job of parenting with the countless hours of fighting and seemingly endless days of misery but that burden will become easier for you to bear once you first see them as flawed, limited people before you see them as mom and dad. Our society is broken. It is built on a foundation of patriarchy that women like us fight to chip away at every single day, in every small encounter and I promise it makes a difference. Our culture and traditions are riddled with micro-aggressions towards women but you will meet many like minded people of your generation and gradually it will die out. Power shifts and the minorities, marginalised and othered in society will eventually taste power too.
Now for the part I know you’ve waited for your whole life. You are 30 now, married to the same boy you met at sixteen. He grew into man who respects you, loves you and treats you in ways you didn’t think existed. Mom and dad are old, sickly and powerless and you can’t find it in your heart to carry that anger with you anymore because their time is almost up. Zayn is divorced, I guess he never fully stopped sowing his wild oats and that cost him his family. You have a baby girl, she’s three years old and her smile is one of your favourite things. You lie awake at night next to your husband and tell him how you will fight with every breath in you to keep your little girl safe, to give her a chance to challenge the patriarchy without fearing it, and to make certain that she knows it’s okay to make mistakes. You tell him that when she falls you will be right there next to her picking her up and dusting her off and you will take the next few steps with her until she’s steady. You tell him that you will give her everything that you needed but never got. Your heart will be full. On a lazy Sunday morning your daughter will wake you up with giggles and hugs, and place an imaginary crown upon your head, “Wake up Princess Mommy!”. “ No my love, it’s Queen mommy!” your husband says, trying to win brownie points. You’ll jump up from bed and drape the blanket around you like a royal cape, adjust your crown and exclaim “No you’re both wrong! It’s King mommy”.
Yours sincerely,
Your future self.