[منى هلال]

4

I stood tonight at the shores of misery. The sea was turbulent with its black waves lunging at me with its long fangs and sharp claws. They reminded me of the big bad wolf in the Little Red Riding Hood’s story. I saw its red eyes flashing horrible sparks at my heart to burn it. There were no barriers of warmth or tenderness to shield me from the armies of agony and misery charging at me with painful injustice from the closest people to me.0

Tonight, before I lay down, and before I reached for my little notebook “my secret keeper”, I was in the living room with my stepmother and my siblings. My stepmother looked at me with a wry smile then asked me to go to sleep. She didn’t ask my sister to do the same. I left the room without protest. Well, it’s something I don’t have a right to, anyway. I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. On my way to my room, I heard my stepmother whisper to Soha: “we will have ice cream when Sahab goes to sleep.”0

I went into my room feeling miserable, and a sudden chocking sensation gripped my throat. 0

Here it is; my stepmother kicks me out of the room with her cunning tact to have ice cream with her daughter, when she knows damned well how much I love it. No consideration of fair treatment between us sisters, or that my father is the one who pays for it, not her or her family. May God forgive you, mother! I wish you would bring me ice cream. I will eat it here in my room and won’t let this stingy stepmother of mine see me. 0