Chapter 1
Here we go again. It makes no sense what came and why it came. Back then when pa said he wanted me like some monster from hell. I had been a toy soldier back in Cyprus they all said so. The saving of the village and I hearing trucks meant they got sad and sadly wanted me dead. My husband's family. Poor sad. I was five and they were all grown up. I was a toy.
"Was it wrong?"
The women all comfortable sat looking at me quizzically. They did not want to do anything but be amused and I wanted the shat from the barn cleaned. I had been trying to do it for some time. Clean it up but could not.
"Leave it with us." They all jeered. I was working out how to clean the mess when an idea came to my head. I would do it bit by bit and pile it on bit by bit.
Somehow there things which they said which are important are not as when one grows old. Crooked and a dickhead? I am not a crook. My family is crooked and banned from legit concerns.
"We are people who do things we are authorities."
"Like when?"
"Now."
They are all bent.
"Shut your mouth up."
I want to be Someone.
The crap comes and goes that I am crap. Known as that.
I want to have stability.
I want to be sensible wearing sensible clothes.
I want to live somewhere nice.
"When they come they will take everything."
"Yes, I know."
I called my husband grandpa. For he was that he was everyone's moron he would say. I was shocked to find he wanted to sleep with me. So I have begun to run and if he caught up with me I would have had to. Luckily he was lame.
Fear drifts inside and never leaves me then the past comes crowding like a beacon of light. The past had been filled with venom. He had been in the habit he said of being a man women loved. He liked the dancers from the Greek tribes and now he landed this?
He would leer and I would run again taking bread and cheese and storing it inside my pocket there would be no supper.
How can the past die?
"It did not die."
"Why?"
Little do I know what happened there and then but the driftwood comes into my head clicking making sense out of the chaos.
I began to clean the shat there was such a lot of the things which animals do.
"Workshy is not nice for kids."
"They had to be educated and made well before joining a society."
"Like you?"
"Not like me. I have never enjoyed childhood. I grew up too soon and wanted to get back to where I began."
When I was young I was vain I suppose I was even worse than some people. I thought time would stand still that ties would remain the same. Now shattered through the veil there is someone difficult and different as we did not expect to find that sort of person inside the name.
"How can you ask for her when we are here."
They tinkle like glitter then gloat towards themselves as they share the same jokes as if they knew each other for many years. The family my family whom I spent feeding for the last thirty years now lost now dispensed with now condemned never to seek out. From then onwards I was the grandmother. The joke and they disliked me when I wanted to inherit a plot of land from all the running I had to do?
"Kept fit and healthy up and down the hills and seeing the tunks came in handy. Grandpa, we are being overrun by the Greeks. Quickly."
"Run and warn the village."
"Okay."
Because now we have documentations which say one must not marry old man people do not. I feel so much better. We lie on documents as we did before. No one protects someone from real harm.
So I begin to pretend that my family is them.
"Grandpa."
"Quite mad?"
"Can I go to school?"
"Wel can she?"
Because they are now so snobby they can snub me with a glance and a glacier eye.
I just shuddered and thought he was not to blame that I was very beautiful and my mum said the same thing.
When I grew up there was something spent when he said come here it is. No sin. No sin nothing but goodness. We believe we have to believe that mistakes do not happen.
That life is a one-day punishment for the crime we did not do. My whole family did nothing they sort of speak and speak until I fall over. Like hypnotic speak and they dare not say what to do. We will say words and then they tried to get me hooked with the males in the family. The happy farm turned into a funny farm.
"We do not detest you." They were moved to say.
"We mean no harm to you at all." They all leered,
I began to run again.
"Never mind who will want to know where the carrot came from?"
"We know where he came from. I knew him when he wore diapers."
Y was my brother and he was the same size as I was.
Crowded impressions and then out. I now live alone. The family who wanted to deflower me and harm me now have got into trouble because they have taken the land agreements and the houses and live in them. Grandfather was so rich. And that makes me semi mad.
"We are no longer amused and we mean to kick you out of the house."
"Cost too much."
If one marries when that young under ten one is not protected by the paper and the law. The marriage is not recognized.
Life is about costs and deficits and paying bills and then dad walking round and round. She sighed and she said dad is round and round he has made his mind up.
"Pimping out a daughter is not good."
"I believe in reusing everything and selling it treble times."
"We believe it too. Daughters especially sons when they are not strong must be imbeciles."
"Indeed they are."
"Ouch, and what did I happen to say to you?"
"Pervert?"
"Daddy sinned."
I am not going to be like daddy. He sold me to a barbarian village and a old odd man tried to do stuff with me.
"Stuff and nonsense."
"I am not stuff and nonsense."
"Then he screwed himself."
"The weaker man left them to it and there is now nothing but dust to dust ashes to ashes."
"I'm not amused."
"This isn't funny."
"No respect that is right isn't it?"
"Failure."
"I have enemies."
"Well, how amusing."
"When the West hears about all this let me tell you they will think it is bad."
"Well were they ?"
"No I couldn't explain the situation to them they got lost along the way. That is because they were very shocked."
"So they didn't get the drift?"
"No one can speak for the fools and no one can speak for others."
"Foolish flossy."
Mostly tragic things happen to me what else is there when the awful man comes looking for his loaf everyone hides and then I am the only one visible. Mother shatters the atmosphere then sparks fly there is not much she does not know. Abuse turns them on. The guards are sometimes worse than the abuser.
I had not been outside in a while the day is still twilight.
Grandfather is eating and eating as if the whole of the table belongs to him. His digestion is good. He sparks a romance with us all. He shares stories and then what makes it happen is that happens he tries to touch me. But what he eats is not agreeing with him.
Then he touches someone else.
He is on the rampage.
"We believe in you we do indeed." Laughs mother in some jellied tone. She is back then young and not so sad.
I am remarking that the house is too small.
"We are small people." Sighed mum. "Too small to inconvenience anyone."
But they were not that small I was.
