Unnecessary Evil

One.

Sophia

In front of me lies a woman, her limbs pulled and twisted in violent angles, exposing the tender flesh between her legs.

Her features are blurred and covered in tears, the only clear part of her face are her lips parted in agony, exposing her bloody teeth.

The brushstrokes hide her age but as I step closer to inspect her, I realise that she is everyone's woman. She is my mother and my daughter, she is the girl down the block and the barista that made my latte this morning. She is the epitome of a survivor, representing the four hundred six thousand women that were sexually assaulted in the United States in 2019, the year the painting was created.

The woman is painted on canvas, her skin blemished by scratches on her knees and palms, purple fingerprints bruising the skin on her hips and the inside of her thighs.

Underneath the painting hangs a small passport picture of a young Asian woman, her mouth surrounded by hard lines.

'And the nightmare begins', it says. By Josephine Lee, Rape Survivor.

"Do you think she painted herself?" my best friend, Lusina, asks, stepping next to me. Her green eyes are locked on the blood trickling out of the woman's private parts.

A shiver runs down my spine, goose bumps erupting on my skin as terrified screams start haunting my thoughts.

"I think so," I whisper and intertwine my fingers with hers. Nodding at the painting, I add, "I think she painted herself as a number in the statistics, that's why she blurred her face."

"She could be anyone," Lu says, her voice barely audible. Her eyes fill with tears and she blinks hastily, pulling her fingers from mine to angrily wipe them before they spill down her cheeks.

Lu is notoriously private about her feelings, one of the side effects of growing up with three older brothers that teased her mercilessly about her sensitivity and empathy.

"That was my mom," she says, breathing in sharply.

My stomach drops. "Your mom too?"

Lu nods, pulling at a strand of her hair, which causes her bun to topple over, her curls spilling down her back.

"She was seventeen. Just before she met my dad," she says. A ghost of a smile tugs at the corner of her lips as she gets lost in her thoughts.

"What happened?" I ask, reaching over and grabbing her hand again. Her long and elegant fingers curl around my short and stubby ones, and I smile at the freckles covering every inch of her skin.

"He got what he deserved," she replies cryptically and wraps her arm around my shoulder, squeezing me to her side.

"Why do you have to look at this sad shit again?" Lu asks, shaking her head slightly as we walk arm in arm past paintings and sculptures of women, men and children experiencing tremendous amounts of pain.

I flinch as I walk past a man cradling his deceased wife in his arms, my heart growing heavy. My mother has been dead for more than half of my life, but the imagery conjures up memories of the night she died. I don't remember her before that moment, a symptom of buried memories due to trauma, my therapist said.

"I'm taking contemporary art with a focus on women's expressionism in modern day America," I explain to Lu and steer her into the direction of the exit of the gallery. Her blank expression makes me laugh.

"Research for a paper," I add and bury my chin in my scarf. Lu opens the door for me, hiding behind me as we step out of the gallery.

The sky is overcast, grey clouds underlining the harshness of the Chicago winter. A bitter breeze seeps through my coat and caresses my skin.