Chapter 21

RAVEN .

I needed to know how there could be a presence who was always right?.

Of course, a question buried deep in the parts of me that were not yet burned, hit and punished for existing in me. My own mind made me flinch like a trigger lodged in me. I did not need to see a whip to remember, these memories kept me in this convent, this office with nuns chanting. If I were to ever leave, my soul would always remain in this convent.

“Raven my dear, come with me”

“Yes, mother”

My eyes went to the door I just hurried out of, the old nun’s office. I made a call to my mother back home. There was no hope for Rayana, my mother might as well have told my father. Yet, I could not let Rayana down by not trying to get us out.

I followed behind the older woman, she walked quite fast for someone who was closer to her last days than her own birth. Did I wish her a peaceful death?.

No.

Whenever I thought of this woman’s death, there came the sour taste in my mother. That all the people who follow God are vile and hypocrites. Could it be that, to him their way is righteous?.

Because how could it be that they are all like this?. After all, they do it in his name. Does he feel worshipped when they do this?. Are they wrong at all in his judgment?. Or is this what’s right?.

“This is our Pope, Francis. He has been a great leader for all catholic over the years of his papacy.”

Mother Superior showed me a picture of a very old white man dressed over in a red shaw like garment and a huge hat on top of his head. His frame was one of the many frames over the wall we were standing on.

“I try to live by his words, mostly when he said, Evil has not dissappeared from history, it will remain until the end but it nolonger has the upper hand, it nolonger has the power over those who accept the grace of this day”

I nodded, my brain processing this information. Though, I began to wonder. Wasn’t he the same man who called laws criminalizing same sex love unjust and emphasized that we were all still children of God?.

Mother Superior showed me more pictures on the walls. They were old nuns, people who made sacrifices and saved lives like Mother Theresa and saints and Martrs. Then we were on a wall of old nuns and mother superiors in their order. It was mostly a history lesson full of examples that were meant to reach me but I was still thinking of Pope Francis.

His words and what these nuns were doing to us. After all he was the leader of catholics on this goddamned earth.

“And you know Sister Elizabeth”

My attention was forced back on the old woman.

Elizabeth.

My eyes scanned the frame, confusion setting in when I noticed she was wearing the same uniform these nuns wear.

“She used to be one of you?”

“Yes, the best. She changed many lives before she left and she was chosen to be the next Mother Superior.”

“That was why she was chosen for me” I muttered, my eyes painfully taking her in. Her eyes, her face, her lips.

I had forgotten the taste of her.

“Yes but she handed you over to us”

It took a minute to register her words. I could not quite grasp them.

“She..She did?”

“Yes. Elizabeth is well accustomed by how we do things here. When we talked, she truly wanted you to be saved. She must have seen the good in you, she asked we do whatever it takes for you”

My heart lost its counting. A beat too fast, a beat too slow. My breath in my throat, unable to leave my lungs.

Elizabeth.

I had saved her a special spot in my wreck.

In my suffering, in my pain and my war with this new lifestyle these people forced me in. I had shed many versions of me in this convent. Through blood, tears and sweat. Through self harm disguised as mistakes to receive punishments that began to feel like comfort.

I had stored my time with Elizabeth as my heaven. One I refused to let be tainted by these cruel nuns who inflected so much pain in my flesh. These nuns who were nothing like my Elizabeth.

Because Elizabeth was….my own. She had given me her mind, her body and showed me the darkness she hid. The one that choked me against the wall as a form of love. A bit tainted but my definite kind of love.

This part was staring up laughing at me.

“And she was right my child. You have shown me why I should never give up on the rest like you”

All their faces began to look like Elizabeth. Even the ones in my head. My own demons had the face of Elizabeth and all the tines we spent together became bitter to swallow. There was the inner pain I could not bear to feel.

I knew how to make it stop.

“I am so fucking happy you helped me”

Her smile turned into a frown.

“You know better than to speak in such a way Raven”

“I’m sorry”

I was not.

“We must go back to my office. Now”

I hoped they would whip me until I lost my breath, until my body convulsed and my brain shut down leaving me in a vegetative state with a brain that never works.

Maybe then I would never have to feel like this ever again.

☆ ☆ ☆

Have you ever been in love?