Chapter One

Looking at these sugar glazed donuts should make me throw up. This woman feeds me like a rat.

I was slapped awake in this room that has a little warmth. Even after I opened my eyes, trying to adjust to this place, I was slapped again. Hard whack across my face that made me pass out. Again.

She wants to kill me. She wants to end my existence but she chose slow torture for me. I have never been afraid of death but I am afraid of this door opening to reveal that woman whose face was like a sculpture in an art museum; devoid of emotions.

I have lost track of time. This is the fourth day I have not been slapped into oblivion or been sedated. There are iron bars she constructed on the door. I was half awake the day she did it. It was after that she gave me more injections.

This place feels like a higher level of the place I was held before. I seem to have been promoted to a different level of suffering. My food here has been two donuts in a transparent bag. She throws it through the bars to land on the couch or the bed. So I crawl to reach it if it is far off. The pain that shoots through my leg makes it difficult to use it.

Today, I just sat on the couch and stared at it beside me. Was there no more food, why does she keep giving me donuts? 

Back home, we fed poorly especially when my mother was being punished but no one ever gave us donuts as food. Donuts? Two small round snacks. Why is she giving me donuts! It seems to be thinning my brain - my observation skills, my alertness, my reasoning. They were all reduced.

I let out a scream from my depth of frustration. It is not so loud. It is the extent I can go without further hurting my facial muscles which have been feeling like they were run over by a train. I have been screaming often. It's freeing. She must hear the sound but it does not seem to bother her. 

This new space is larger. There's a couch and a bed too. There is an adjoining bathroom with a moderate sized bathtub and a toilet. Big cartons of teddy bears, duvets and throw pillows are at one end of the room. The food is poor but I now have an option to use a bed, though sleep has not been my best buddy these days.

Just one click of the key, without warning the door opens. She stands at the door looking around the room with a metal box in her hand.

In the past, I never understood how a person could be described to be not ugly and at the same time not beautiful. This woman has a plain face without distinct features. It is as if the creator just molded her face and threw a mouth into it while reading a book, threw in the eyes inattentively while answering a phone call, then threw in her nose while thinking of what to eat.

"Have you missed this place?" I ask.

She does not acknowledge me but moves to the closed window and looks at the bars there.

"I can't run away; I don't have a leg."  

" You seem to have lots of energy today," she says. There is a way she says " lots" that makes having energy seem like a bad thing. I stop talking.

She squats down in front of me and begins to lay out the things in the box. There are knives of different shapes, needles - big needles and other tools that I did not understand but they looked dangerous.

Strangely, my eyes begin to water. "Please, I want to die. I prefer guns. Just shoot me and I'll be gone." 

She begins to unwrap the bandage around my leg. I watch on till she was done.

"There's a bullet in your leg."

"You put it there," I reply.

She spreads out her instrument so the steels scrape against the tiles as they move. I wince, dreading the way the contact causes a rippling from my head down to my hands.

"Can you talk when you are told to?" 

I nod, eyeing the instruments. 

" How did you overpower a man with a gun?"

" It was self defense. I just stabbed him."

Her face doesn't show her belief or doubt. She begins to unwrap the bandage around my leg. My breathing is off, the air in this room is off; it is not enough.

She lays down the wraps and picks a knife. I remain silent. It was always easy to read the eyes of others but it was impossible with this woman. She wore no emotion in her eyes apart from the need to see.

"I'm not lying to you."

"There's a bullet in your leg." She says again.

She begins to use the knife on the bullet wound. I let out a scream and under her glare, I fall silent. She is helping me; she is bringing out the bullet; she's helping me.

She is leisurely sticking a knife inside my leg and turning it like how one turned a screw on an object. The pain makes my teeth jam together against my lips. I reach out for the nearest thing beside me and grab on to it, sharing my pain with it.

Soon, the bullet falls out. It connects to the floor like a steel and rolls away till she grabs it. I was bleeding. My leg could easily pass for a spring or any water outlet. 

Goosebumps rise on my skin as I wait for her further administration without talking. My mouth is filled with blood from a wound I inflicted on myself.

She was packing up her instruments - not making a move to stop the oozing blood.

"I'm bleeding," I say. 

She closes the lid of the box and stands. "Tell me about the man you killed."

"I don't know him," I quickly say, "He raped me."

She just stands there, legs thrown wide apart, looking at me. Maybe she does not believe me. I don't believe myself either. It did not feel like a rape. Rape was when Uncle Joel started coming to my six years old body at night, rape was when I struggled against him even at twenty while he thrust inside me violently. 

I look at my bleeding leg and look at her. She follows my movement then walks out of the door. The key turns in the hole and I hear her footsteps retreat.

The donuts I was supposed to eat are crumpled in my hands. I bring out one and place it on my wound, applying much pressure to stop the blood. That's not working. It is not working.

In a commando crawl, I begin to move to the bathroom. I raise myself holding onto the edge of the bathtub and tumble in. 

The water runs down my leg but the blood still spurts out. I look around but this place is empty. Too late, I realize I should have grabbed a teddy bear from those cartons and used the stuffed part as a wool.

I bring my teeth down to rip a part of my dress but it's tempting. I want to bow my head and close my eyes. Why am I trying to live?

This death will be peaceful. It will be silent. Just me and the sound of water and I'll be gone. And this death is easy, without struggle.

I rip the bottom of the dress finally and tear it off to a long, wide thread. I still place the sugar glazed donut on the wound before tying it up. It could stop the growth of bacteria maybe - it could stop the blood. But this is my own fight.

I have tried to survive all my life. I'm not one to just die like a stray cat. My senses are thinning, the world is getting smaller. I should have turned off the tap but I could not. I feel it's coming.

So this is how death comes; this weakness, this paralysis, this emptiness, this anger at everything, this useless fight brewing inside of me.

Someone is carrying me out of the tub. I loved that tub. I felt at peace there. It was like I was dying in my own casket.

I am hearing voices, I'm seeing three heads joined to a neck, I'm seeing huge hands, I'm seeing octopus limbs. I'm tired. I want to rest. But I try to keep my eyes open. I want to be awake when I die.

The voices come closer. I can see the white syringe waving above me before it comes in contact with my skin. The sensations at my lower limbs stop to report. I struggle within myself to remain wide eyed. 

This is it. Unless a stick holds my eyelids apart, I can not anymore. I "voluntarily" close them.

"Try sitting up."

I first let my weak eyes adjust to the environment. It is a familiar one. The cartons are here. This odd woman is still here. I obey her and try sitting up. It's a surprise I was not slapped awake.

My leg is now neatly bandaged. I wonder if I should be grateful. 

She points to the bowl of soup on the bed which still lets out steam. "Eat."

I nod but I don't move.

She walks to the door. "Make sure you eat." 

After she leaves, I grab the soup. It looks unappetizing. It is a very leafy soup. The green looks unfamiliar but I ignore that and begin to scoop mouthfuls into my mouth without pausing so I do not pay attention to the unsavory details of the concoction.