Writing More writing, a bit of violence in this one...

[Ravenstorture]

This one is a true story, believe it or not...
I tuned some sections to make it a tad more humorous, Douglas Adams style, to give the ending a bit more shock impact and to contrast them. Plus if I didnt the thing wouldnt hold you into it until the end. Hope it's engaging enough to get you through the whole 2085 words... enjoy.
Ravenstorture

______________________________________________

Within An Inch of Her Flesh


It was very hot when I woke up, but I still donned long sleeves, heavy trousers, gloves and a veil over my hair. Mum said it had something to do with 'respecting culture'. I couldn't understand how people could even move in this heat with all the clothing. Only the women wore it, not the men. I didn't think it was fair, but you can't argue with tradition. One woman, I noticed as I went out onto the balcony, wore a full black costume - you couldn't even see her eyes. I held a black cloth over my eyes to see if I could see through it - it was easy in the bright, dusty sunshine. The dark cloth filtered the glare that reflected off the Sahara, which stretched out behind me in every direction.
"Can't I just stay here?"
"Don't you want any breakfast?"
"I'll come, but it's only because I love you so much."
"Ok, you win. Macdonald's sound ok?" Macdonald's meaning bread, I thought.
My mother had taken me to Egypt to experience cultures different from where I lived - Australia. From what I had seen so far, I had a completely new view on the world, on Egypt and even on Australia - how sheltered it was from the rest of the planet. Egypt certainly had a culture different from ours - usually Aussie girls wear less than the boys do, but here the minimum dress standard for women was to cover everything but the hands and face, and for men, it was to cover everything only from knee to navel.
We locked the door to our old, smelly room and took the old, smelly lift down to the old, smelly ground floor. The streets were bustling with early morning activity and the glittering Mediterranean presented itself before me in a wide blue arc lined with a thick strip of garbage and dead fish. We walked past a butcher hanging up a beef carcass in the sun, nearly tripping over a thick layer of frantically howling cats as we edged around. The bazaar was packed with glittering 'prizes' and American tourists who "wanted a real taste of culture" and Mum and I were momentarily separated by a herd of goats.
"This is it, I think." I called to mum as she was momentarily distracted by yet another glittering dance belt, her eyes fogging over. We had come to a small bridge at the end of the tourist's marketplace, the " display" Alexandria divided from the "real" city by a dirty stream of sewerage, dead cattle and a complete lack of tourists. We crossed the bridge and took a sharp left into yet another marketplace, smaller but with just as many people. This one had more goats, no tourists and less hygiene. No belts were sold here, only the things that the destitute needed, like vegetables and goats. Many of the women were completely covered in black, and poverty was out in force.
"Hang on mum - let me catch up to you." I struggled through the crowd, desperate to catch her. I had something on my mind about this place.
"Don't worry love - I'm sure that you could find your way home easily? before the child slavers get you, anyway." She casually read my mind. My face promptly adapted a horrified expression. "Just joking!"
"Ha?" my laugh was as weak as my legs were.
"Hold my hand - the goats are coming." We walked for a few more minutes, the tankers on the Mediterranean becoming dots glimpsed between passing buildings.
"Mum, I know I've asked you this before, but why do the women have to cover every thing up?" Mum dragged me off the street into what could be mistaken as bakery, perhaps if you were drunk, but that was what it was meant to be. A bakery minus any type of hygiene standards and about thirty cats too many.
"Because, love, the government and people are screwed. They don't treat females equally yet, and that is for a long and complicated reason."
I ordered a loaf of bread in Arabic, pointing out that I wanted a fresh one, otherwise there was no way I would have got it. We injected ourselves into the thick, sluggish traffic of people sliding past the "bakery" and wondered where it would take us. I had no doubt we would find out, one day. Alarming thoughts perhaps, if you are in a country where there may be room to go where you please, but hey, this was Africa. It seemed that the progression was taking us north, out of the slums, towards the bay. My loaf of specially requested fresh bread was yanked out of my hand, dislodging my glove. The assailant saw the white pallor of my skin and quickly placed the loaf back where it had come from, and dismissed himself with a mumbled apology. My path was abruptly obstructed by a wall, and mum and I sat on it. I soon discovered that my demands for an edible breakfast had not been met. The loaf met its older brother on the garbage-strewn sand, and I continued to starve quietly and without fuss.
"Mum?"
"What, love?" She was not handling the craving for food as well as I was.
"What happens if women accidentally reveal themselves in public? Like, their arm or something?"
Mum was suddenly silent, and she didn't look at me when she replied, "I don't know."
I had a feeling that she did. She had been reading about it since she was able to, a real human rights activist, and I supported her and shared her views all the way. She had taken me across the world to show me the horror - was it so bad she couldn't tell me?
We watched the street as the sun reached its zenith, and shadows suddenly found better places to spend their time. The waves crashed behind us as if they also had better things to do, but didn't have the luxury of pissing off for a while like the shadows did. I swatted at a mosquito, and then at a seagull. Mum rose and we walked back to the hotel as fast as the sun would allow, the streets falling silent as the siesta began. When I awoke to the three o'clock prayer, a small portion of the heat had been replaced by humidity. My left hand was sunburnt from lying in the sun, and no matter where I looked, I could not find any energy to perform any bodily functions like breathe, and think straight. Mum bounded into the room, scaring away a few mangy cats that had seen fit to invade our hotel room.
"Let's go!"
I struggled for air and made little gurgling noises.
"Ready? We're going to the Internet café, remember?"
I rolled off the bed but did not have the energy to fall anywhere.
"Lunch?"
I suddenly leapt into the bathroom and straight back out again, dressed and drooling. My hunger had majestically preceded my death state, souvlaki here I come.
"Ugh." I grunted with enthusiasm, as my brain had not received its fair share of blood as yet. "I'm going to pack when I get back, the train to Cairo leaves tomorrow, doesn't it?"
"Yes - that's a good idea, actually." She stood there and looked thoughtfully at the floor. I turned around to look for the city guide, and stood on the third pair of sunglasses this week.
The lift was literally nowhere to be seen, so we took the stairs. I liked the stairs, the banister was excellent to slide down, but unfortunately there was one to many dead cockroaches today, so I relished the exercise of dodging cats instead. Our little hotel was situated on the bay road, in the center of the wide arc that capped Egypt. A gigantic mess of high rises and buildings stood a way away to our right, and Guide to Egypt told us that it concealed an Internet café.
"The easiest way to not get lost in Alexandria is to follow the northern coast. It sort of has an edge like a stamp, so really it's just one bay after another. If you find a bay, you're on the top coast." Mum drilled me as she caught the horrified look in my eye as the massive tangle of apartment buildings loomed in front of us. "If you do get lost, wait an hour or so and you'll hear one of the five daily prayers. See how the men always point it one direction as they lie down to pray? There's your compass bearing; men always point east when they pray, towards Mecca. If you know east, you know north, and then you find the bay and in turn, our apartment." We walked a while in silence. The air became cooler as the packed suburban nightmare skyline began to block the hot desert sun.
"Ok, well this shouldn't take long. Someone will know where the internet cafe is?" Her voice faded out as she caught sight of a woman driving around the corner, covered from head to toe in black, her scared eyes peeking out from a pale slit over her face. We quickly crossed the road to the bay edge, the pavement framing the wide bay separated from the dirty beach by a short, stout wall about three quarters of a metre high. The lady's hands were high on the steering wheel, and her sleeve was slipping dangerously low, revealing a sliver of pale flesh. She didn't notice in time.
"Gareah! Gareah kawabi!" Mum screamed as she shoved me back to the wall.
Suddenly a screech was heard as a man abruptly stopped his car and got out, abandoning his vehicle in the road and more men started to walk towards us, some yelling angrily. The woman in the car had revealed just an inch of flesh and had not covered it in time. She began to wail and shriek in Arabic but I understood enough to realise that she was frantically praying.
"L*** - run!" Mum yelled but I could not move, I was so shocked at what was happening in front of my very eyes. Everything began to slow down, and I began to notice in shocking detail the violence in the men's eyes. They began to kick and beat the car, and one man smashed the driver's side window, cutting the woman's eyes, and dragged her onto the footpath at my feet. The mob closed in and I was roughly shoved onto, and over, the wall. It was short on that side but on the other side it was a sickening drop, not far, but it looked that way from upside down. I fell onto a pile of garbage, the breath knocked from my lungs.
I could hear the woman scream and they struck the life from her, her bones snapping like branches - only a few feet away from me. The beach behind me was swamped with angry people yelling, some brandishing weapons and clubs. A man had stood on my hand as I had not yet got up, and the increasing pressure from the mob forced me back over the wall. My feet scrabbled at the granite wall worn by years of high tides. By the time I had collapsed on the other side, the crowd was walking away, no longer interested in what had happened.


The woman had been beaten beyond recognition. Blood was splattered everywhere, and as I knelt staring at this unfortunate woman I felt as if I were alone on the street. We were the only two people in the world. I thought of all my mother had taught me about society, about the relationship between men and women and what it had done to us in the past years. It had not gone away, and although we were sheltered from it in Australia, my mother had known and she had taught me about the horrible planet we live on the best way she could. She had shown me. Perhaps this woman, too, had known. She may have shown her children also.
Thinking of my love for my mother and the chances and luck that I had I lay down, on the street next to the dead woman, and cried as the sun set behind the wall in a blaze of purple and orange.

L*** G******
In Memory Of Hakea Tamanya, 1977 - 1998

[Guest cloricus]

why did you block the name out - why even put the first letters?

[Ravenstorture]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by cloricus [/i]
[B]why did you block the name out - why even put the first letters? [/B][/QUOTE]

I never put my real name on the net, and the rest is just habit. Those who know me will recognise who it is.

[Guest cloricus]

ok makes sense

:)

[Pressure]

[color=purple]Every work of your I read astounds me Ravenstorture. Each different from the last, all painfully beautiful. This one was amazing but I must ask two questions..

1)[i]Have[/i] you been to Egypt?

2)And did you know the woman who died?

[/color]

[Raiha]

[COLOR=royalblue]That was sad and sweet. The sad reality of it all reminds me of a book I read once.....[u]Princess[/u] It's about a Saudi Arabian princess named Sultana. I recomend it to anybody interested in further reading on Middle Eastern culture and women.[/COLOR]

[The Harlequin]

If that was the worst thing one ever experiences, one should be thankful.

[Ravenstorture]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by DBZChikaGhan [/i]
[B][color=purple]Every work of your I read astounds me Ravenstorture. Each different from the last, all painfully beautiful. This one was amazing but I must ask two questions..

1)[i]Have[/i] you been to Egypt?

2)And did you know the woman who died?

[/color] [/B][/QUOTE]

The story is entirely true, right up to the womans name. I went to egypt three or four years ago, for a month. I backpacked there with my mother, it was great. I did not know the woman who died personally, after I witnessed the event I got her name from the local news that night.

[Raiha]

[COLOR=seagreen]Intense. I am so thankful I live in California. Where a girl is allowed to come onto the streets in nothing more than a bikini.[/COLOR]

[Ravenstorture]

Ahhh, god bless america.

[Guest cloricus]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by The Harlequin [/i]
[B]If that was the worst thing one ever experiences, one should be thankful. [/B][/QUOTE]

And you have seen worse? and if you awnser don't just say yes. But you are right, you should be very thankful.

Ravenstorture -

It's the best story I think you've ritten.

and yes GOD BLESS AMERICA where corporate fraud and gun laws reck peoples lives every day!

[Ravenstorture]

Hey! I never said it was the worst experience I have ever had. Yes, I have experienced worse. But in my opinion, that experience wasn't that bad, really. I missed the worst of it... as you can see in the story. It was just upsetting. As it should be. And stop bragging about how crap your lives are! I watched a woman get beaten to death for showing her arm and all you two can do is point out that "I have experienced a lot worse."
And as for being THANKFUL that I saw a innocent woman DIE, give me a break. that has to be one of the most stupid things I have ever heard the two of you say. No, I am not THANKFUL that I saw it, nor am I THANKFUL that it was the worse thing I have seen - because it isn't!! It just so HAPPENED that I recorded the event in a story.