Nestia

My number two pencil with cut down eraser has teeth marks to the tiling. I had my eyelashes close to one another and my face drowned in the composition book I was writing in. I looked up in open empty thought. Or more full then empty. I looked out and could see the dark outburst of street lights from down below and the window ten feet agust. I stayed in that open tolerant for enough to let my mind wonder. Then I took the two corners of my cheap but comfy blanket, and wrapped it over my shoulders tightly.

I started to write more of the things that have happened to me. Things that made me feel I had to write it down. The thing is I never write. But today...today I had to go to the little drug store on the corner in the cold air and get this notebook with fresh pencils...and make it old. If you were to see my pencils..my goodness. It did seem like I had written all my life.

I think it has been three or four months ago..and I am still in that state of shock and disposal. I took a trip to this country. I am not going to name it..so please don't ask. I went there to take a study on photography for a study I was doing with some students. I got there with a few coluges. They refused to go on the catty when we got there. So we took a more conventional lift. A bus. What a blah and unexiting thing. Oh well..when we came to this village where we were going to stay at for a few days, I saw Nestia. She had one to many stray hairs in her face, and one to many robes on her body. It looked like she had done some gruesome work and had to now greet us.

When she came up to me and the others. She lifted her robes and strayed hair. She looked to catch a small view of us, and welcomed us. I then met her brother-in-law, sister, and parents. They all looked well made, except for her. I felt a bit weird. If she had not looked so undistinguished. I may have felt okay with myself. I told the others that it was good we were leaving in a few days. They did not understand my feelings and distrought that is brought to me. I just was uneasy.

The first night that we stayed there was really eerie. I am a light sleeper unlike the others. I hear things no one else hears. I laid on my back staight..on this fur cot. I could not sleep anyway. The thing was filthy, and the air was grungy.

I heard footsteps, and murmuring crying. I did not know how to deal with this. I just listened. I heard lots of no's and echoes of hurt baring. I stayed up all night to this.

In the morning..I felt once again strange and weird. Even more then yesterday. When I came to this long stretched hallway and was rearing my way towards the front room entryway. Nestia popped up out of no where. She bowed to me and wondered endlessly off. I looked back at her, and felt sadness. I felt her loneliness and conformity. I felt alone for her. I felt something....

It has been two days and nights now, and we were about to head off and go home tomorrow afternoon. It was our last night there. I did not know that I would feel something so deep and painful that night, that..it would send me to write this right now.

I tried to get to sleep that night...but once again nothing was working. Not the long walks of taking pictures of everything in the villages, not the long hot sun that fizzled on us, not the disgusting food prepared for us. I just was not tired. I was tired of being here that's what.
I laid though, and looked to the ceiling with my eyes closed and my fingers twiddled. I heard it again. I heard the murmurs and moans of agony. I heard the no's and the banging. It was louder this time. So loud that it woke up my colleagues. We went and followed the noises quietly. We found it came from one of the rooms down the hallway.

We peaked to the noises..and it was an astonishing sight. I felt like I wanted to go to sleep now. I needed to leave and go now. So I told the others we needed to go back to our rooms till tomorrow and act like we saw nothing..absolutely nothing.

I did not sleep, or talk, or say anything to anyone all night or all morning. Then when it became time for us to leave..Nestia was being taken. She was wrestled outside and taken to the streets by her brother-in-law and her father. I felt I had to do something, but I didn't. They took her out in the streets with overbearing screaming from her lungs...it stopped..as well did I. I fell to my knees sobbing and crying. Asking why..but then I fearfully regained my composure and told my saddened and just as sorrowed others to come with me and leave NOW!

We took off in the bus that picked us up..without saying goodbye..without looking back. We left till we could not think..just cry.

When we got back...I cried still. I cried for a week. I cried for a month. Till now that I have been confined in my empty tall high rise apartment with the windows closed, dark as ever. I tell what happened. I tell how my heart tore in pieces that day.

The girl was slaughtered. She was stoned and beaten till her scalp and ribs showed. She screamed bloody murder till she had no lungs. They killed her. They killed her because they did wrong to her.

When we got up that night..we saw her get raped by her brother-in-law. We overheard in the morning that she warned them that she was going to speak of it. They did not let her...they killed her like she was a goat on the street. With even the villagers watching. I could not do nothing though..but leave. I was afraid of my life to.

My blanket dropped from my shoulders and I left slowly and walked to the window. My pencil dropped on my notebook..I looked out the elongated window that wrapped around my south wall. I opened the blinds a bit..and looked down. Five stories down. I saw her..I saw Nestia.