388800 MINUTES

A Story by zabiza

Sitting in a room. A room decorated with all excellent furniture. Furniture that is white. White means purity. Purity is nothing now. Sitting in a room all alone. I have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. I am something whose existence or absence is the same. But a baby, a new-born baby can get all the things in the way. Maybe she will save my life. She will save me from all the unfortunate things happening around me. No, this is too much for a baby whose little chubby hands are twisted beneath her little head. A baby who has a smell of heaven which is full of flowers with butterflies around is what I have now. However, she is still in the size of a coin. Anyway, why am I repeating the word “she”? Do I want it to be a girl �" a girl like I was, I have been and I will be-? No way! She should be much better. She should do everything I have missed in life. She should have education in more prestigious schools than mine. She should do snow sports. She should know how to communicate and how to behave in society. She should marry a very handsome man �" maybe an Italian guy with strong muscles- she should visit me every Sunday when I grow older. She should find something for me to hold on. Again, oh no! This is also too much for her. And after all, she is not going to be a robot. I wonder what she is doing now and what she is like. Probably, she is sleeping quietly in my womb. She is my baby, no one else’s. But who is her father? I really don’t know. Maybe this is the way it should be. If I happened to know who he is-which is impossible- he would give me money. Do you know for what? For abortion. But he does not know that I would prefer killing myself rather than killing my baby. She is all I have.

…

- Hello, I am Amy.

- Yes, I have heard about you a lot. But you do not need to know my name. Is it ok with you?

- Sure. Where will we go? To a house or a hotel room?

- I don’t like being asked questions. This will be the first and last question I answer. We are going to a house. There will be two more guys apart from me there. Do not worry. You will be paid accordingly. You will just show your skills and don’t do anything you are not told.

…

Nine months. Isn’t it too short to have a perfect living thing? Only nine months. 270 days. 6480 hours. 388800 minutes. It is short I think. But who cares? Holding her in my arms will make me forget everything. I will not remember anything about that situation I am in. I will take care of her. I will help her to the bed. I will feed her. I will buy everything she needs. I will not be a mother like mine was. I will not shout at her and not beat her. I will not force her to get on my job like my mother did. But what will I do for a living? How will I earn money? I cannot continue my present job. I cannot bring all those disgusting guys to home where my innocent baby is safe and sound. That’s enough. I can’t go any further. My head will come off if I do not give up thinking. Purity is gone. Where is it?

…

- Hi, Amy. We have a new guy. He is much richer than you can ever imagine. You can get a lot from him if you use your mind and of course if you please him. He just wants a girl to stay with him for four days. He will pay for every hour. Can you believe it? I think you should get this job. Hey Amy, are you there?

- Yes. Just give me the address. I will be in his place in an hour and be sure that I will please him.

- Ok honey, here you are. You will find every necessary information on this card.

- Thank you.

…

What if he is a baby-boy? A boy like my father who always ends the days with an empty bottle of wine in his hand. No, this cannot happen. I can feel her heart’s beating inside me. This is not a boy. Boys don’t have hearts at all. This is what life has taught me all along. They really don’t; especially when they are in a bedroom. But there is no such a problem because I am sure that the angel inside me is a girl. I have never been so sure about something. She will bring back the purity that I’ve lost years ago. She will be the right key to the door of eternity. She will be loved and she will love. It will be always rainbows and butterflies, nothing else. What if one day she comes to me and asks who her father is, what will I tell her? I cannot tell her that I don’t know. This will tear her down, fall her apart and bring her to pieces. I can’t let her down never and ever. But what will I tell her? Maybe the most intelligent thing to say is that her father is dead. I can tell her that he passed away when she was a baby. I can tell her that he used to love her very much and his last words would be about her. This will satisfy her and keep her busy for quiet a long time. And this will be the only thing about which she feels sorry. I will not let anything else and anyone else hurt her feelings. What about her job? I know that she is not going to be in the same job as me. Then what will she do for a living? Of course, I will not force her into any kind of job. She will make her own decisions. But I would like her to be a musician and composer. She can be the best in the world. She can write many good songs. The better would be our writing songs together. Maybe she will be interested in only the melody part and I will write lyrics for her. Lyrics are hard to handle with but my literature teacher used to tell me that I was so good at writing. I used to love her very much until the day she raped me with just one finger. We were in the toilet. I tried to scream but couldn’t. I tried to move but couldn’t. I tried to die but couldn’t. She held me tight. She embraced me tight with her arms. I felt one of her hand moving towards my skirt. She moved under it. Then she took off my underpants. The next thing I felt was pain. An unendurable pain which lasted for the following one week. I was 13 and I lost my virginity besides my purity. I could not tell anyone. Because she was the one for whom the dice would fall as she wanted them to. I was in the basement, she was in the sky. I held my breath and counted to ten; I fell apart and started again.

…

- Let’s write the report of her incident and go home. I am very tired. It is a traffic accident, right?

- Yes that’s true Mr. Ford. The accident happened last night. She was brought to the hospital by a black car whose driver dropped her onto the floor and drove away immediately.

- Was she conscious when she came here?

- No, she was not. She was badly-injured. There are bruises all around her body. We suppose that the accident is not the reason for them. Personally I think that it’ is about her job.

- What is her job?

- Don’t you know? You are the police officer, not me! I am the doctor.

- Yes, I know her job but I would like to hear your guess.

- Ok, she is a prostitute. She has been to jail many times. And don’t think that she is in a poor situation. She really earns too much as far as I know.

- How can you know so many things about her job? Isn’t it weird?

- Umm… Promise that it will be a secret between you and me.

- Ok. I promise.

- I slept with her once. She said that her customers are always prestigious guys like lawyers, engineers and so on. That’s all I know about her.

- Ok. I see. Let’s come to her current situation again. When will she wake up? What is your guess about that?

- She can pull herself together in an hour or in a week or in a month. I cannot say something certain.

- Ok Dr. Andrews. Is there anything else I need to know about her to use as a useful piece of information in the report?

- Actually, yes. She was pregnant.

- Is that true?

- Yes, but we couldn’t save the baby. I would have preferred to have saved the baby rather than her.

- You are right. We have enough prostitutes to satisfy guys like you in the world. I wish to have none. Please do not take it personally. This is my idea, not a criticism.

- I see your point. There is one more thing that you need to know.

- What is it?

- She is constantly speaking in her sleep. Her words don’t make any sense. They seem like fragments of a whole story. She even sang a chorus from a song. I have never heard that song before.

- What was it like?

- Umm… “If you become a nobody blind to your family, who would you be? I can feel a sense of danger, you are staring at me like I am a stranger” it was something like that. But you know we have more important things to do. That’s why I didn’t care much about her words.

- It is ok. We don’t have to know the number of guys that she slept with.

- Right.

- What was the baby? A girl or a boy?

- It was a girl.

- Then you saved the world from another prostitute. Good for you Doc. I am leaving now. I have heard enough for the report. Hope to see you soon.

- See you…