The Dark Room I Woke up Not Knowing Where I Am.

The Dark Room

Ahmad Al-Radhi

Methodist University

I woke up not knowing where I am.  I am laying alone, I hear a lot of voices that I couldn’t recognize. I was desperate to hear someone call my name. I thought I was going to die I screamed and no body responded. I was confused, all what I can see is pitch black, more like box, the floor is wet and the smelt like something... a wet dirt. I feel something is walking on my leg, and tried to throw it away without knowing what it was. I felt scared and lonely. I am trying to remember who am I, and what happened to me, and how I ended up right here. I am trying to calm myself now. I tried to get up, but I couldn't my head hit some kind of sealing, it didn’t hurt me, but I felt like I am trapped.

Suddenly, I hear someone crying I feel like I knew this voice. It was warm and gloomy. I barely can hear it, as if it was coming from a distant. Now, is it my mom voice? It's coming back, I remember that I was in car hearing the music from the radio "killing me softly" by Frank Sinatra. I was furious Yes! I just had a fight with someone, I do not recall whom but I was snapping in rage shouting and cursing.

         My thoughts were interrupted by feeling heaviness over my body, then all my clothes start getting soaked in water. I can hear the sound of winds moving through trees and branches. The water drops hitting the ground. I never felt those sound before until this moment. I sense every movement around me. I felt disoriented I don’t know the direction of these sounds. I sense it everywhere around me, could it be a storm or its only raining. It is weird, I don’t feel cold. Another flashback rushing back to me.

I was fighting with my parents, they don’t understand me, they caged my freedom, I felt like prisoner. I am not kid any more, they can't control me. My Mom discover my hidden stash of weeds, she immediately informed my Dad and he started to yell and shout.                              "I can't believe it, we did not raise you to be like that. We trusted you, but you disobeyed us and you betrayed our trust" dad said.

He raised his hand up high and slapped me on the cheek, I was shocked, stunned, and my cheek swelling. I ran away to my room. I smacked the door behind me and locked it. I cried. I felt my blood poling inside my veins. I know that I am old enough to decide what it is best for me. They accused me without hearing my side of the story. I never used it. I admit I was thinking about it, but I did not. A young girl like me should be enjoying her life, but with my parent everything was prohibited. I couldn’t go out with my friends, to cinema or parties. I was even chaperoned going to the mall. they even limited my clothes choices.

"this is not appropriate for you" mom said.

Everybody in my age has full set of makeup.

"you have natural beauty" mom said.

I tried to comfort myself by saying that at least she let me had a light lipstick and blusher. I was the weird girl in my school, old fashion clothes and chose. No one wants to speak to me, almost no friends at all, no one wants to be associated with that weird girl. This is not the first time something like this happens, I remember one day a guy saw me walking back from the school, he offers a ride back home. It was a sweet gesture, so I accepted his offer, and I wish I did not. He dropped me in the front of my house, and my dad saw me getting off the car through the window. I came me in and he started raining me with questions.

“why are riding with him”

“how do you know him”

“what did you do with him”

“where did you go with him” dad shout.

My mom was supporting him with questing. I was overwhelmed, I tried to explain myself to them, but they won’t hear me. They never listen to what I need, and why I need it. my parents’ generation is different than the current one. The things were acceptable in their period are cliché in this one. My Dad is an old man in his late 50’s always busy in his work wearing his black pants and his white shirt and the hat like on old farmer. And my Mom in her late 40’s, always cleaning or wearing her white apron cooking. While I was drowning in my thought, I hear them arguing downstairs about me.