SOMEONE IS CALLING

The Whore

Elaa.. You, an impersonating whore. She was 15 when she heard this word for her. The first time it felt like a bullet casting a hole that could never get filled and even if it would, it would leave a bigger, more agonising hole after. Her mother never wished for her to become a whore. But if anything were her mistake- this was the word she would come up with. After a bad abysmal time, Elaa had gotten used to of it. The smell would often stay with her, the smell of a sin. A dervish had once told her how it would stay for 40 days. Elaa would then do it again, sleep with older men, younger ones and sometimes of the same sexuality. On a diary she would count the days she would stay a sinner. After the 300th day she had lost her count. A sinner often does that, gets lost in a sea of dormant, never to wake up again. She would feel like a fangtooth or a vampire squid. A filthy creature surrounded with only darkness and the little light she would once feel from the ocean above would then turn into night and it wouldn't ever end. She never knew how she started all this. Her mother sold her for a few dorattas to an old sailor man. She was a lily flower back then, so small in a big fat world with booze smelly drunken hands groping her all the time. Her petite appetite would feel pain and settle for a few bundle breads, her legs did often bleed red. The marks stayed with her skin long enough to remember. The nights were fearsome, she couldn't sleep through them at all. As the morning sun would risen up after the moaning of the night she would sleep tired and dry eyed.

She never got to see her father. Or she did once. When it was raining and she as a child heard an argument in their little always fusty hut across the forest. She would make her sit on her lap and tell a story. A story about how she would always tear apart the clothes and toys he would bring to her. How she was this stupid putrid child. And how her mother would even sell her to buy a tomahawk. But the good thing he would say about getting broken was- how one always ends up splitting into different synergies. Like a foolish toy, once broken could be used as two different toys. He would smile as people do, once when they have lied and he would keep smiling and then regretting as people do once they have gotten used to of— lying.

The argument mostly changed Elaa's life. Her father, whom she remembers as a fine looking good story teller left hitting the door shut with all his might. Her mother, not poor enough back then burst into anger that night, broke a few of her things and then settled for what most women do after an encampment of fear, anxiety and lack of courage. She cried.

The sailor man lived near a big sea of swamp, flies, mugs. Roaches would roam free. Inside his house was a quirky, noisome room- he had put a neon sign in yellow over it. His idea of latter-days. This little room had the only stilly bed, and few vodkas on the side table. Mostly empty bottles but just to add a contemporary side. Elaa was too young to understand any of it. As to why the sailor man would always throw her in except for just inviting her into the thin little room. Why would he always lock the door from the inside when she never ever retreated? A window, double glazed near the size of an oak stamp would open outside. She used to see and hear motor cars driving upside the road. Sometimes people would come down the road, parking their mobile to a near max altitude as if they were scared dry of someone. They would walk down the equestrian trail and draw them inside the sailor man's little malodorous house. Some people would take hours before they knocked over Elaa's room, others just hurled in, some were drunk, some boys of her age, too quick to draw their swords and too shy to do anything that would hurt her. The same routine would go on and on, the sailor man once told her, how they'll now move to a posh area he bought a place in. Of all the money he had made of her.

What Money? Elaa asked.

Well- the business is been boomin little flower. His stinking teeth carved a pathetic smile.

Elaa, a delicate little whore he said. My little deflowered child. I would take you to see the bank of a good river. Someday, and Elaa would smile sadly. She never wanted change— always afraid of one. Change had never brought her lesser pain. But the idea of getting out of this suffocating swamp of a room would make her bright eyes brighter. Glimmering down her pretty face were mostly scars. She wasn't pretty as mostly girls of her age in Alaska were, but she was young. A straight little nose bewitched with a nose ring captivated mostly everyone's attention. Above were two doughy eyes, her mother's favourite as she had told her once but never again. Your eyes are the road to your heart- Always wear a smile through them she would say. How can you wear a smile through your eyes? Elaa often asked her. But she never cared to reply.