[stylist] Trials of an honorary Dragon (was A deafblind girl)chapter 9 rewritten.
helene ryles
dreamavdb at googlemail.com
Sun Sep 27 20:25:09 UTC 2009
Thanks for your feedback Shelley.
Helene
On 27/09/2009, Shelley J. Alongi <qobells at roadrunner.com> wrote:
> , I think you mean lack of water not lack of thirst. Nadia is definitely
> thirsty in the scene at the first school. Keep writing. You writewell. Oh
> and just one more thing, sales man should be salesman one word. You develop
> madrella's character well.
> Shelley J. Alongi
> Home Office: (714)869-3207
> **
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> "What sparked your interest in trains?"
> "The face of an engineer who knew he was going to get killed by a freight
> train."
> ---SJA for anyone who wants to know
> To read essays on my journey through the Chatsworth train accident,
> Metrolink 111 or other interests click on
> http://www.storymania.com/cgibin/sm2/smshowauthorbox.cgi?page=&author=AlongiSJ&alpha=A
>
> updated September 24, 2009
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "helene ryles" <dreamavdb at googlemail.com>
> To: "A private list for authors" <DB-AUTHORS at tr.wou.edu>; "Writer's Division
> Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, September 27, 2009 11:32 AM
> Subject: [stylist] Trials of an honorary Dragon (was A deafblind
> girl)chapter 9 rewritten.
>
>
> Chapter 9: The son my mother wanted by Nadia Murat.
> 24/9/1994 - 29/10/1994
>
>
> Beria’s pedal driven rickshaw landed in the playing field. In the
> same spot that it had landed the previous year. Everything was the
> same, except there weren’t any boys hanging around this year.
> “Go to your classes. You don’t need a bodyguard. Your aunt is just
> being very silly,” Beria ordered.
> I faltered. Wondering whether I should go home now.
> I was making my way to the school gates when I saw an angry
> grey-skinned woman approach me. I remembered the long curly black
> hair and piercing yellow eyes from last year. She was even wearing
> the same top with the fur collar; and the same tight leather skirt.
> She looked even taller tottering on the black leather boots that she
> wore. Mother simply marched up to me in a blazing fury.
> When I tried to run I found myself rooted to the spot. I was just
> standing there when her immaculate pink nails dug into my flesh. She
> grabbed my arm in a painfully tight grip, dragging me out of the
> school gates.
> Fear coursed through my body when I found I could not move. There
> was nothing I could do to stop her, or attempt an escape. I wanted to
> scream, but no sound would come out. The spell that bound me meant
> I couldn’t even call for help.
> Mother dragged me behind some spiky bushes. She roughly pulled off my
> neon pink and black dress, and dressed me in a plain shirt and
> trousers, that boys usually wore.
> She next pulled out a pair of scissors and began to cut off most of my
> hair. I was filled with a sense of loss without my lovely long curly
> hair. It was as if she was cutting off part of my identity.
> "Keep away from my sister Liza. She's a crazy dangerous woman. She
> only wants to fatten you up so her dragon can eat you. All Darthrilan
> police officers are like that," Mother told me, screaming into my
> speech processor.
> This was auditory torture for me. Since I was unable to move, there
> was no way I could turn down the volume.
> "You are Nadir Murat. You are a boy. Let nobody see your body. If
> people discover you are a girl, they will hurt you. Remember that.
> It's a shame they won't do a sex change on anyone under eighteen."
>
> *** *** ***
>
> I can’t remember the name of the town my mother lived in. She took me
> to another school where the children spoke but didn't sign. They were
> all bigger then me. A pale-skinned woman looked rather dubiously at
> my hearing devices and Aphakic glasses. She took up some chalk and
> wrote on the blackboard for me.
> "Can you read?"
> "Yes," I wrote back.
> "Can you hear anything at all?"
> "Yes, but only when it's very quiet."
> "How much can you see?"
> "I see most things as long as the lighting is ok. Not too bright but
> not completely dark either," I explained. The teacher showed me some
> picture books and wanted to know if I could read the print in them. I
> nodded.
> The teacher put me in the front row where I watched her speaking.
> Afterwards she wrote everything down on the black board, especially
> for me.
> I found the other children hard to talk to because of all the noise.
> None of them knew any sign language at all. So I had a chat with the
> teacher instead. I remember how lonely I felt. How I missed my deaf
> friends from Druzil.
> When mother came for me that afternoon, the teacher spoke to her.
> Mother looked furious. She exchanged heated words with the teacher,
> who looked shocked by what mother was saying to her.
> Mother grabbed me by the arm and yanked me out of the school. We
> crossed a road which was crowded with numerous rickshaws and bicycles.
> Then I was taken to a block of flats, where we climbed the ladder up
> to the fourth floor. I shook so badly that I was very slow at
> climbing.
> "You look enough of a freak as it is, without you waving your hands
> about in that absurd way. Why oh why do I keep giving birth to so
> many freaks? It must be from your fathers’ side of the family.
> "Now you are not to use any more of that freakish signing. We paid so
> much money to cure you of your deafness. The least you can do is stop
> acting deaf so people like that teacher don’t ask nosy questions,
> thinking you need extra help. I'm not having that."
> "I am deaf," I protested.
> “No! We sacrifices so much to make you hear again! How dare you act so
> ungratefully! How dare you contradict me! I want you to act like a
> normal hearing boy! Not a cursing freak,” Mother stormed.
> Mother held me down and beat me with a leather strap.
> After she finished, I just lay there on the cold concrete floor. My
> body ached, my throat felt dry, and my stomach rumbled. I had not
> been given anything to eat or drink that night at all. I dare not
> move a muscle in case it evoked mother’s wrath.
> By the following morning my discomfort was increased by my soiled
> clothes and strong stench of urine. I must have wet myself during the
> night.
>
> A few days later, mother enrolled me into a different elementary
> school. The teacher at this school looked me up and down with a
> frown on her face. She did not try to communicate with me on the
> black board.
> Not that It mattered too much to me at that stage since my hungry and
> thirsty was all that I could think of. My throat felt really dry from
> lack of thirst and I could not stop thinking about food.
> When the other children started pulling out their lunches I stared
> pointedly at them in the way I’d seen my dog Bella do. When that
> didn‘t work I snatched a bottle of water, out of the hands of one
> girl, and began to drink from it in long thirsty gulps, until it was
> all gone. The girl glared at me as she snatched her empty bottle
> back.
> The teacher spoke to mother at the end of the day. What the teacher
> told mother made her very angry. I was beaten again as soon as I got
> back home from school.
>
>
> *** *** ***
>
> The next day mother introduced me to a small timid man in a long white
> shirt and matching loose trousers. He was grey-skinned, and had a
> wooden leg.
> "Nadir, this is your father, Maram Murat. He is a travelling sales
> man," Mother informed me. I felt awkward. I could not remember
> anything about this man at all.
> "You are meant to say, ‘Hello Papa’," Mother told me, slapping me
> across the face.
> "Hello Papa," I replied obediently.
> "Don't Madrella. The child won't remember me, obviously."
> "Nonsense Maram, Corporal Punishment is good for children. Otherwise
> they get spoilt rotten. Why don't you show him your leg?”
> My father pulled off his wooden leg and showed it to me.
> "Just look what a great sacrifice your father made for you. He had to
> amputate his own leg and sell it to a dragon, so you could hear.
> Even after that he still fell heavily into dept. You must stop
> switching off your hearing. It's very ungrateful after all the
> sacrifices that have been made for you..."
> "I don't mind if he doesn't want to use it all the time," my father
> contradicted.
> "Well I do. You have no idea how to bring up children correctly.
> They need a firm hand."
> "It was my leg, so I can say if I don't mind him turning his ears off.
> I wish I could turn my ears off too. Especially when you shout at
> me like this," Father retorted sullenly.
>
>
> *** *** ***
>
> I lay curled up on the floor, when my father came to see me. He
> handed me a bag of samosas to eat. I wolfed them down hungrily.
> "When did your mother last feed you?" My father asked me in great concern.
> "She hasn't yet." I told him.
> "Goodness me! That's no good. A growing child needs regular feeding.
> I'll have to speak to her about that."
> "I don't like it here. Can you take me back to Aunt Liza," I begged.
> "Didn't Liza kidnap you?"
> "No, she rescued me. I want to go home now..."
> "Well I don't know what to make of all this. Your mother is a little
> hard to live with you know. I've been away travelling for the last
> few years, but your mother's ex husband phoned me up about you. He
> told me you were back with your mother. He asked me to keep an eye on
> things. It seems his sister works as a police officer and she had to
> deal with some complaints. She would have wanted to fetch you, but
> her supervisor won't have it. I don't like this situation any more
> then you do..."
> "Take me back to Aunt Liza then," I demanded.
> "All right then, lets go right now while your mother is out," my
> father suggested.
> Father took my hand in his and we headed for the front door.
> However, we found to our utter dismay, that the front door was quite
> impossible to get to. My father tried to throw himself at the door.
> He bounced back again without even touching it.
> "I’m sorry Nadir,” he told me, rubbing his sore limbs, “It looks like
> your mother has put some sort of charm on the door to keep us both
> shut in."
>
> *** *** ***
>
> “Why can’t you give my poor child a break,” my father intervened,
> after one of mother’s numerous beatings.
> “I’ll break his neck if he carries on behaving like this. Do you
> realise how many different schools he‘s been to now, and he still
> keeps acting deaf,” mother stormed.
> “Well he does seem to have problems with his sight and hearing.
> Surely you must have noticed? Remember what the audiologist told me…”
> my father timidly replied.
> “Curse the audiologist! The great science demon cured him of his
> deafness and blindness altogether. He’s just putting on an act. I’m
> going to beat it out of him though, one way or another.”
> “That’s intolerable, and you are keeping us prisoner here too.”
> “Yes of course I am. I don‘t trust you Maram. I f I let you out,
> You will just squeal to the police and I‘m not having that, so you can
> both stay here with me…”
> My parents spent a lot of time arguing after that. I grew to
> associate my cochlear implant with the sound of quarrelling voices and
> slamming doors. I heard several yowls of pain from father, whenever
> mother got particularly violent with him. In fact she used as much
> corporal punishment with him, as she did with me.
> During their domestic disputes I would hid in my room or under the
> table. I would turn my hearing devices off, as often as I could get
> away with. I’d even taken to removing the batteries so they wouldn't
> know that it wasn't actually on. This worked well until mother
> figured out what I was up to. She forced me to listen to a series of
> unpleasantly loud noises.
> My parents’ last argument was the worse. I could remember it vividly.
> “Could you please remove that charm you put on the front door. I’ve
> got to leave you again soon. There is a wedding in North Nazdonia…”
> “You and your cursing weddings. How dare you leave me with this brat
> of yours?”
> “Nadir can come along too. In fact I really want to take Nadir with
> me. It will do him a world of good…”
> “No, Nadir stays right here until he starts to behave normally…”
> “That won’t happen Madrella. You are likely to kill him first,”
> “We‘ll see about that. I don’t trust either of you. Since you are
> refusing to sleep with me, you must be getting it off with another
> woman, behind my back...”
> “No, of course I’m not…” my father replied in injured tones.
> “Well I am! The triplets aren’t really yours and neither was Maya.
> Only that miserable little Duman is yours..."
> My father got up and left. I heard the living room door slam, then
> their was an almighty crash, followed by the sound of splintering
> wood. It seems father had blasted the front door open.
> So he could work magic after all. Even after apologetically telling
> me that he could not. He must have managed to break through the
> charm that mother had put on the front door in order to get out.
> I felt very hurt that father had not taken me with him when he went.
> What would become of me now?
>
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