Hey young thug, the world is yours....

So I am pretty sick today, feeling like crap! And having bad chest pain from all the coughing!

I'm debating whether or not I should go to work tommorrow. On one hand, I may be spreading whatever I have to everyone... on the other hand, we are always short staffed on saturdays, SO, IF I don't go the other two girls won't be able to take breaks..... kind of a tough one...hmmmmm.

A Women's Issue
by Margaret Atwood

The woman in the spiked device
that locks around the waist and between
the legs, with holes in it like a tea strainer
is Exhibit A.

The woman in black with a net window
to see through and a four-inch
wooden peg jammed up
between her legs so she can't be raped
is Exhibit B.

Exhibit C is the young girl
dragged into the bush by the midwives
and made to sing while they scrape the flesh
from between her legs, then tie her thighs
till she scabs over and is called healed.
Now she can be married.
For each childbirth they'll cut her
open, then sew her up.
Men like tight women.
The ones that die are carefully buried.

The next exhibit lies flat on her back
while eighty men a night
move through her, ten an hour.
She looks at the ceiling, listens
to the door open and close.
A bell keeps ringing.
Nobody knows how she got here.

You'll notice that what they have in common
is between the legs. Is this
why wars are fought?
Enemy territory, no man's
land, to be entered furtively,
fenced, owned but never surely,
scene of these desperate forays
at midnight, captures
and sticky murders, doctors' rubber gloves
greasy with blood, flesh made inert, the surge
of your own uneasy power.

This is no museum.
Who invented the word love?

The Arrangment

         

 

           The gold embroidered colours of silk were draped upon the pillars.   

There were hundreds of people, many of whom she did not know. She walked

with an assembly of family members up to the mandaap. Her pulse was racing.

She wanted run away and never come back.

           His feelings were a mixture between contentment and bliss. He was extremely happy that this stunning woman was committing to spend the rest  of her like with him. Even though they had never met, he had a feeling in his heart that it would work. Maybe not at first, but slowly they would learn to love each other. Just looking into her eyes reassured him.

          When she was a little girl, she always noticed that Indian brides were sad.

As they would walk down the aisle, their gaze would be fixed upon the ground.

Without even the slightest hint of a smile on their faces and usually with tears

in their eyes. She always told herself that she would be one of the happy ones.

The one that was smiling from ear to ear, but still beautiful and untainted. How

could she be happy marrying a man she didn’t even know. She couldn’t even

back out of it because her whole family would feel the embarrassment that it

would cause. And she would never be looked at the same way again.

          Her name was Mona. They spoke for the first time after the wedding. Her voice was that of an angel. They basically introduced themselves, their

interests and where they wanted to go from there. He was happy to learn that

she wanted to make their marriage work almost as much as he did.

          She talked to Kaash for the first time that night. He wasn’t a bad guy, it

was just her that was unsure. She couldn’t get her head around the fact that she

was forced to marry a man who she hadn’t spoken two words to until after the

wedding. She didn’t want this marriage to work. She actually wanted it to end

just as fast as it had started, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t

let her family down and she didn’t want to break his heart. She felt trapped in a

loveless marriage pretending to be happy.

           Kaash loved Mona with all his heart. To him, them being together felt

very right, but slowly, day by day, he figure out that Mona did not feel the same

way. Instead of disappearing, her resentment for him seemed to grow stronger

and stronger every day. It also became apparent that Mona always had an

excuse for everything. She was coming home later every night and seemed to

have a million excuses not to get close to Kaash.

          For Mona, this marriage was like a game. She wanted to cheat her way

out of it the fastest. He was like the safe zone for her. She could be with as

many men as she wanted and even though he knew, he would still do anything

for her.

           Kaash was getting angrier and angrier by the day. He knew Mona was

having an affair. And even after confronting her about it, she acted as if it was

no big deal. She would promise to stop, but then Kaash would find her back at

 

it a week later. He was turning into a different man. A man made of anger who

would do anything to make his wife his and only his.

           Mona didn’t have a care in the world for her husband. She did what she

wanted when she wanted. Never taking his feelings into consideration.

           Kaash was getting fed up now. He did everything for his wife. He

cooked and cleaned. He provided her with everything she wanted and she

didn’t even have a job. All that he asked for in return was respect. He hoped

that one day that respect could turn into love, but he knew they had to start

somewhere. It seemed as though Mona did not know what respect was. If she

did, she would have told him how she felt instead of cheating on him. Kaash

couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t take the cold loveless eyes that stared

back at him every night. He couldn’t take the way everyone spoke about her.

He couldn’t take the fact that she wasn’t only his. If he couldn’t have her then

no one could.

            After all the guilt and frustration building up inside of her, Mona felt it

was finally time to talk to her husband. It was time to talk seriously about their

relationship. They both needed to stop pretending. It was time to stop living

this lie. She had gotten over the fear of what would happen to her family if she

left Kaash. After all, it was her life not theirs. When Mona got home that night,

she got into the shower with ideas of the future in her mind. She knew what

she had to do.

           Kaash drove home from work filled with rage. Everything was getting to him now. The neighbour’s dog barking loudly at him, the neighbourhood kids playing hockey in the middle of the street not moving for the honking cars. Kaash entered his house. Leaving the door open, he raced up the stairs, not looking back even once. As he entered the bathroom, palms sticky with sweat, he glanced at the stranger in the mirror. He then turned to face Mona. No words were exchanged. All that was left was to pull the trigger.