Merely Surviving

People just asked around me and talked through me as if I did not know what I was, ceased to be a social outcast because I did not conform. Then it spread like a disease. I put a brave face on this.

Infatuations that I had maddened them and made the whole family think that I was mad. So they begin to treat me meaner than ever. How can a woman have no pride or self-respect and love him?

Desertion and make-believe follow like a fool; I behave as if he is still with me.

I realize he is not free.

He is not with me?

But still hope there is a twinge of this love. I cannot escape the consequence because the Mafia is unforgiving to fools. They disown me.

Drop me from the clan's protection. I am no longer a relative but food for their sex drive. So maddening is it not that they thought me a food for themselves? The fight begins slowly, like a slow dance; we take a bite, then another, then another, until it escalates into a full-blown war.

A bum flying from woman to woman as if he does not want her at all. What is wrong with her wasting her life on him? They begin to toss their heads and wander off when I get near.

It makes them look bad to look like me.

So many offers and she does not even darn the sods, the poor guys were in tears, went in a tearing hurry to be with something warmer.

Her style is to thank them and ask if they want tea, and when they reply yes, she asks them for money.

She has nothing but ingratitude.

"She must be a whore type?"

"Well, guessing it must be correct."

"We are respectable people, and we must keep our distance."

"Even her father she charges for the tea."

"Does she know he is her father?"

"He never told her."

"Well?"

"She should know families know each other."

How could I not know them even by sight? The longer I was left in the chill, the more I began to look at the families.

Then I begin to spot them one by one.

It was bingo night for me all the time. My correct spotting of my esteemed relatives made them feel secure. The discomfort brimmed into a snarl.

I did not want to sleep with my father or the family. Did not want to marry a cousin. Did not have a real job, they said, living off them. I am no longer in existence. My body is functioning, my brain has fled. I had become a bit silly, did silly things, and perhaps did it better than I should.

A proper scandal, I thought, must be able to write it down sometime. I shuddered to think what might happen, and then I worked out the details, watching them unfold before me. I felt elation. Something called a cat and mouse became my motto. If I survived, I would tell my story.

I realized suddenly, like they were killers, they did not ask or try to look surprised. But it came to a final realization that Mother did not have to say that they were a part of a group that did nothing but kill and steal.

"Look what I got?"

"I got something better."

They were smiling as they did it better. They break the law, they break the laws of justice. They said that being powerful meant they were able to take what they wanted and get out and get away.

"How many did I kill or kick today?" She asked, smiling wonderfully open.

"So many."

"They went round into the gaming room to celebrate. He steered her empty back and did the whole dance routine as they were celebrating the devilish climax of the moment. To boast to a friend of what one did was the charm of it all. The rewards of a day's labour.

I nearly collapsed.

"My husband may be watching?"

"Is he next?"

"Who knows?"

I had to be safe to do so It was not safe then; it was a bizarre situation. They came and smiled, and one felt they were family, and then they would walk off with the power of attorney, the deeds to the house, and eventually the lost pounds.

If they held you in their power, they took the lif,e sucked it dry. I was afraid to feel anything because that is the true meaning of surviving. A woman does feel danger, but to think it even for a moment would have made me even more vulnerable.

I no longer cared about social conventions, and looking sharp and able made me seek the refuge of something. I did not know what. Somehow, this is not right; they all laugh out loud. She lives in her head. Her head is made of cotton wool. And they all laughed.

I ceased to be active, and then I stayed at home, becoming increasingly housebound. I am no longer living in a double life. I have come to my senses and come alive. I am living and doing, and the whole thing was nearly too late.

They were all shocked that I was in love, that I had a life; they only thought of me as a caged animal doing the work. There was a sense of betrayal as if I had lied to them for a long time.

I kept the children safe and fairly innocent. I did it for them. When they grew, they did not average; they did not want to know.

I tried to explain to the children, but they just were not amused. That the other auntie did not lie made her more sensible and mature. If only they knew, and I hoped they never found out.

They never realized I was into theatre, the arts, and did in fact have a degree. They just found a different person sitting in my chair, behaving like them but not as successful as them. How dare I betray their confidences?

They all moved in together on the same street, making this a happy choice. They asked nothing but the truth. I did not deny their cruelty.

In the end, what mattered to me was that they were happy and reasonably safe and able to deal with their own situations.

I had to lie to live and protect them. Now they have nothing but sadness that I have lied.

There is no right or wrong, only rigid rules. One does not make mistakes that matter; they are life and death choices. It only makes me fear the lack of rules and the happy-go-lucky, thoughtless misunderstandings.

When they were ten, I could not reveal that most of their family were mafia.

Their lack of sympathy is like a cold air within my body, and my armour is disappearing as it is disappointed.

Cold gusts come and never leave, and the kitchen is cold. I am cold. My hands are white and clammy; they are clumsy because they are weaker than the rest of me.

Life is not about the sensible people but about the successful. If I had been sensibly married, I would not have reached this stage. Withdrawn and unable to communicate why I am unable to think, feel, and do as everyone else does.

I did have hobbies and people who asked after me. But they often asked why bother with someone who did not go out, had nobody, and did nothing but clean her house and tend to the garden?

"I did not make money during my long life."

Economically, I am broke.

"Bankrupt?"

"Something akin to that."

"That was a narrow escape."

"You should not sit next to me, it may be catching."

Success means having to go out and drink like a lad and then become Jack the lad. The error was disliked by all the above. I asked to dance and dance and dance, but could never dance because Mother made funny faces and told me I looked like an elephant having a fit.

"I could learn."

"Nothing doing, showing your thighs and making a spectacle of yourself. Let the graceful people dance, and you stay and behave well. A man will see you and you, and he will be ever so happy."

A wallflower does not have any suitors, does she?

I was never liked. I did not ask to be understood. I am nothing but a flicker in the eyes of nothing wept and did nothing but right by others, then they went wrong, everything turned, and in turning, I began to feel vulnerable.

Someone asked things alright.

The man asked what day it was, what hour it was, and when that happened. Then he did it again. When did that happen in what year, what hour? Is there anything wrong with you all? I am concurrently wrong.

I did nothing but wrong. The right way was wrong, the wrong way was even worse.

You are a key. Wrong house, there is not much else to think about. Almost the days to think about the true meaning of the home situation, where did we all go wrong?

I am the wrong person in there, here, and everywhere, wearing myself silly. Wardrobe wrong, I am wrong in there, and adding to the mess, people are trying to con.

Carting me towards nowhere, there is no one there to ask me anything but to behave seriously. I am to be thrashed and then slashed? I do not think so. I am writing this to make a point. If I am to be killed off, then I have left a record of the whole story.

I am almost there, thinking what it has done for me, carrying this burden, this is a botheration.

He has not done it.

I am not a burden; I am someone who has healed me. I am no longer at loggerheads with the world.

People now are hostile, and I have quarreled with everyone. There is no point.

I mattered once, did a lot for other people, now I am done with doing this and being lost.

As my mother had often said, when an older person dies, they die willingly; when a younger dies, they struggle as if doomed to leave the best things.

"A rose for the old, and they sniff and die."

"A hammer for the young."

My strength is leaving my body and as myself is nowhere but here and there waiting for the scraps from the worst case people who are the charming and the charmed who are without anything but goodwill, and it is all my fault.

Always my fault, I did not grab opportunities, did not pass the right hurdles, and here I am nowhere in my home doing this and that, bad thoughts then get me.

I am glad she has left the scene; she was no good, Julia, that is. I must not jump from this and that it is wrong to do so.

I am not a normal woman; they called me odd even when I was quite normal. Nowadays, they call me other types of names. I am seen as someone else.

It was because I was trying to save my sister from real whoring, and then I went and said I would take over some of her debts. Narrow escape.

The debts mounted and increased, and many said it had increased and not decreased. I went over and over the statements from the banks, and they said the same, not much money.

No one understood because, being artistic, I figured I did not want money. I could earn better doing something else. Washing dishes and doing other stuff to be a cleaner was much worse.

I got ill and then what else do it best for a while.

I am doing better now that I have retired.

People think I have spent my time doing little, but I have found I have done much more than I should.

I should have realized I was better than I should have behaved well. Really, it is outcast the cast is casting, and then what is there?

Love died inside of me.

Kindness is overrated.

I am the type that nobody likes.

I am that and this, and then my sisters came and overtook me, took parts of me, and then they walked off, being like my ambitions.

"We are better than you."

I agreed they have jobs.

They have all of society and people around them; thankfully, they are not like me. I was not appreciated by them, never have been.

They thought while I was on hire, doing work, that I was sitting down having a ball.

The debts have not piled up. I pay bills so fast as if the bills were not on paper.

But sometimes I get caught out and men mill the doorway as if they have received an invitation. I know when they will come because the bank is low on funds.

When that happens, I am as tactful as I would like to appear. I can frighten the guys as much as they frighten me.

I am as if the woman of someone's dread, and the doctor said I am not well. I am not well thought of, and the general opinion was that she and they can go to someone's called hell.

I am this worn out to know that the general people ask what it is about.

When people say do you ask the right questions when someone is unwell? To the authorities and all and sundry, what is this person asking of this and that? What is the general opinion about migrants with disabilities? When people think and they thank me, I am able to speak.

Life is about many chances, and the changes in there is almost there to make the feelings strong. I am not as strong as I used to be, but now I am almost the one without this and that.

I am not going to cry anymore. I am going to be here asking myself what reason there is for us to behave unkindly towards one another.

The little thoughts I did not much care about, but to feel, and then there was too much feeling, as if the rancid air. The treachery of life and then the little thoughtless cruelties of life.

I am that here and then women come first, and then the ten commandments. What is it here and then, who spells danger, where did it happen, these crude asides, and the asides she is a mad woman, she is a slaughterhouse house, she paints and mutters to herself. She is odd.

"Get the nutters out of here."

"She is one of the nutter of the highest order; she has nothing wrong with her, just a benefit cheat. Ogling everyone and everything in sight."

Greed is what made me; it does not matter who has the sighs and the gentle madness; in order to matter, there must be other people who think one is important.

Not a shred of evidence, I am not greedy.

But I know I will one day be important.

I have lost my mind. Things crawl in and out of people, demanding money. They are from the distant past, they make demands, and money means they know me. Who knows me, the little guy who came and took a hundred quid off me. He appalled me with the likenesses of a mother or a sibling. My Sema, who did not die but went mad when she was raped when she was eleven.

I know them all as they come through that door, begging, retching, and laughing at the joke. What is the joke? I am the joke. Because I still believe in decency and good behavior. I am a laughing stock.

Sema went mad, and I am here behaving well towards her. She was only half a sister. I am mad to be so involved, but when we were children, we were inseparable. She took care of me. The lookout was mostly silent.

"Boys are the enemy; they hurt little girls." And she would speak lower, and in confidence, she would say stuff.

Her sister did not say she made it up. Just went away.

I did not know they were my sisters