Surviving

• Delilah Roberts, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2022

I entered the town square with my mother’s hand woven basket on one arm, the other looped through my father’s. We approached the market stalls, tables laden with fruit and crates of fish lining the footpath. Wives of the sellers sweeping the ground around them, walls covered with government posters demanding compliance.
Women wearing homemade clothes of drab colours and thick wool, bustled around me surveying the produce, each clutching the arm of their father or husband, ensuring they complied with the consorting laws.
My father grabbed hold of my shoulder, coughing violently.
“Father, what’s wrong?” I asked, my voice cracking in fear.
His breathing was laboured and shallow, he clutched his chest, his startled last breath leaving his body before he hit the ground.
“Someone, please help!” I cried to the men and the few women beside them. They purposefully ignored me, continuing on their shopping. Women were not supposed to speak in public, acknowledging me was illegal.
Tears ran down my face, I hugged my father tightly for the last time.
The rules of my town are strict, women have no power, no acknowledgment, even when married we have very little power, that’s all that matters here. Women are stuck being housemaids, or trophies. Men leave town to go to wars, marched in groups, past the armed guards, rarely to be seen again. Those who are left have received trade training and education suitable for employment as machine feeders; further education is reserved for our rulers' descendants. Women shall never pursue, ask or think about it. Women are born here, grown up here, and eventually die here.
After my father’s death, my life was over, I was a wreck.
No one was there to support or help me, no encouragement or empathy. Isolation was the only thing I experienced. Not a single soul visited me or offered food or shelter.
I have no brothers, husband or father to support me. I’m breaking more laws than I can possibly think of by just surviving. Guards constantly roam the streets, searching for unaccompanied women, to be orphaned isn’t an excuse and without a husband it was only a matter of time until they’d get to me.
A hard knock on the shed snapped me out of my thoughts. I covered my mouth with my hand at an attempt to subdue any noises I could make. I scurried to the corner quickly, knocking over a pot in the process.
A group of guards kicked the metal door down, a quick gasp coming from me.
“Ms. Fallon, you’re arrested for breaking laws, 3, 4, 10, 19…” the guard continued saying what seemed to be a thousand law’s I’d broken.
The rest became a blur, getting forced up from the corner, pushed around in tight handcuffs throughout the town as a way of embarrassment and punishment. They threw me carelessly into a cell filled with other women similar to me, just surviving alone without a related male broke their strict and unjust laws.