She looked outside her window and realized for the very first time, that her family was fucking poor. Her family was not the only one; the entire country was fucking poor. The sight was revolting, sewage spilled onto the poorly constructed roads from leaking pipes and cars drove over it. The smell could kill, literally.

The clouds were heavily pregnant with rain. Normally, this would make her smile. She loved the smell of the earth when it rained. Rain brought life, flowers bloomed and vegetation sprouted. Her father taught her to always water the plants from the leaves as it makes them feel good.

“What daddy?” Asked the naive little girl that she was back then.

“The water wets and washes away the dirt that had accumulated on the leaves over time. When that is washed away, the plants are able to breathe again. Not only that, the leaves are able to trap the sun’s rays which they use to make food.”

“Oh, that sounds lovely!” she squealed.

“Yes baby, just like when mommy helps you wash up after playing outside in the afternoons.”

The more she gazes at the sight outside her window, the more frustrated she becomes. She remembers being a little girl and how happy she was. She can’t help but wonder how the hell she ended up being frustrated and overly annoyed at only twenty years old. She remembers wanting to grow up so badly, wanting to be independent, wanting to help her parents with the family expenses. Well, now she wishes she could go back to being a child again, go back to the time when she had never talked back to her parents, go back to the time when she had no idea what being an adult steals from you, go back to the time where she felt that she made her parents proud, go back to a time when she cared about nothing in the world, where she didn’t have to think about tomorrow, back to a time when her world revolved around kindness, naivety, cartoons, friends and family; go back to when she was only ten and had not been compared to those who went before her, back to when her heart was not broken. More importantly, she wanted to go back to the time when, all she wanted to do was play.

The car hit a pothole and that brought her back to reality, back to the horrible sight, back to the revolting smell. Every time she watches the news or reads the paper, a government official has made the headlines as an “embattled” so and so. Corruption, corruption. Money is always stolen in this country. It explains a lot, why her friends want to get jobs in government, why a classmate brought a whole bus and paid some of the classmates to go vote some official, why ‘your parents should have stolen money too’ was such a trendy reply to those whose parents faced such allegations. That was something to be proud of. Yep, some people seem to have their heads way up their family’s ass.

In this third-world country, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That is the reality, where corruption is rewarded and hard work is ridiculed. Her reality is that national companies and state owned corporations are run down in order for those running them down to get tenders and import ‘what the citizen needs’. Her reality is that, no matter how hard she works, some imbecile will wake up one day and decide to loot public resources and will get away with it. Her reality is that the harder she works, the more she is taxed, yet those looting do not pay any tax. Her reality is that in her country, voting is more of a ceremonial than a democratic process. Her reality is that the generations before hers were despicable and unworthy, that she can only name two women in her entire history that she can look up to, and that is including her mother. Her reality is that she despises those in power, those who take and take and deprive those who really need it simply because they can. What’s worse, however, is that that is the system, that others in her generation are being bred to take over and ‘secure’ the future for those who put them there. Her reality is that those who make laws relating aspects such as abortion and sentences, life and death, are biologically incapable of bringing life itself. Her reality is that her society is more concerned with other’s private and sexual lives than what should concern them all; the bleak future of those they gave birth to. The truth is, she hated it, all of it. They all disgusted her.

She hated the system and this seemed like a never-ending cycle. That was her reality. She felt that she was being suffocated, that no matter how much of a difference she wanted to make with her voice, she was afraid that that was all she had. She was aware that there were those who went before her who used their voice and ended up losing their lives. She was aware that young girls like her end up being prey for old men in big companies and organizations. ‘Speak up,’ they say. Speak up? Speak up??! Are you stupid? Yes, indeed. Very stupid.

She remembered the words of Ayn Rand, a Russian-American writer and philosopher published in 1957[…] “When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing. When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in the goods, but in favours. When you see that the men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you. When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice; you may know that your society is doomed.”

The driver braked hard and this shocked her back to the present. She looked up, more surprised than annoyed. She immediately understood why. A couple of vehicles were parked along the road and a crowd had gathered around what looked like a scene of an accident. Two heavy trucks had collided head on and tiny pieces of glass were scattered all over. They slowly passed the scene without much of a conversation; yes, this was a bit normal. She was only able to see one person injured. The injured individual was sitting up, possibly hurt.

“They should be lying down and applying pressure on the injury sustained,” she thought to herself.

She thought a lot about this accident.

“It’s probably the rain, I mean, you can barely see out here and the roads are not even marked,” the young lady next to her said. She then continued to state that further away from towns, roads are never marked like they should be.

It got quiet again as the rain pounded on the roof of the vehicle. She was drawn into her own thoughts again. For a twenty year old, she sure seemed extremely frustrated and possibly depressed. It would not be long before she needed to see a doctor every once in a while. Not even her favourite playlist would take her mind off of things….

Another sudden braking

‘What the fuck is up with her driving today??!’ She thought, visibly outraged and cursed under her breath. The seat belt hurt her a bit but Before she could curse out loud, she looked out her window and what she saw sent shivers down her spine. She knew, she knew that life was lost this time… A little crowd had gathered at a scene of crime and had placed rocks on the road to slow down the drivers who would, if they did not, drive over a body of a male person lying horizontally by the side of the road. The body was uncovered and the head was smashed, spilling its contents and blood on the road. It was dark and drizzling, but she could still see the remains.

That must have been an accident and the perpetrator fled the scene. Why wouldn’t they? If they stayed, they would be lynched. Yes, that too, is normal. It was safer for them to report themselves at a police station than it was for them to wait here for the enforcers of the damn law. She had seen such a sight before and that one happened just moments before they arrived at the scene. Had they stopped there, they would be among the first witnesses. She remembers that day, yes, day. It was a hot afternoon and she was on her way back to her home in the village for a weekend. She was running away from the fast life of the city, she needed a break from school too. She remembers seeing the body which was still oozing blood slowly. This time, thankfully they covered the head only. There must be nothing worse than finding out you lost a loved one on social media. Yes, people do not respect others even in death. She remembers listening to her heart beat and boy was she surprised. Her heart did not miss a beat, and neither did it beat any faster. Loss of life failed to scare her anymore.

‘Welcome to the adult world little girl, you have passed with flying colors,’ she told herself.

They passed by the body slowly and each detail became engraved in her mind, just like every other scene had. ‘What a horrible way to die,’ she thought. ‘We’re all going to die, and instead of loving and living, being kind and caring, we live like savages, mistreating and killing.’ She knew that it was not the sight of the body that scared her, it was her reality, the reality that life was fleeting, that in one second you might be no more.

She wondered if her life was worth living the way she did. But was she living, really? She wanted more out of life but was afraid that it might not be what her destiny was. She was afraid, that if this was the case, that she might be unhappy and full of regrets. That was not a life she wanted. She then thought back to the little girl that she was a decade ago, full of life and laughter. She wanted so badly to be that little girl again, to feel what she felt. She was neither rich nor prosperous but she was happy, without a care in the world. She remembered and yearned. Just then, a powerful feeling overcame her; in that moment where life and death were only a second apart, all she wanted to do was play.