THE INFLICTION

I don't know who he is but I do know one thing- he looks weird and creepy. I want my mummy. I'm just walking to school. I'm in fourth grade and I'm 10. Mummy and daddy forgot I had school today. But it's ok, they are always busy talking- ‘talking about a website and a shoot.’ There’s no one out, it’s actually too early to walk anywhere. I live 3kms away. I don't care if I have to walk because it’s fun. The wind is nice, the grass smells good and even the sun isn’t out yet.

I hear someone calling “Hey!!!” Should I respond? Mummy says it’s not nice to ignore people. Oh my God! It's that creepy looking man. Aahhh he has a kitten in his car. “It's so cute. I want to pet it. Can I?”

 “Yes, why not?” he said “I’m a very nice man and I love children with brown eyes and black hair. Come, come along, I will give you a candy too.”

“But....Oh you could drive me to school and please give me the candy now uncle” I get into the car then. “This kitty is really very cute, I’m loving being with it uncle”.

“Hmm”

As he is driving along the way I realize it’s not the usual road that goes to my school- “My school is the other way uncle.” He stays quite. “ohhh may be it’s the shortcut, right?” Yet no answer from him. I engage playing with the kitten. After a while as I open up the candy looking out of the window in between “This isn't even near my school. Why are you getting mad? And this candy is stale.”

“Hmm…”

“Can you drop me off now please? PLEASE.”

“Shut up… stop yelling”

“Why did you hit me? Where are you taking me?

He halted the car at a lonely street and started forcing upon me. “No, Stop touching me! STOP IT! STOP IT! I want to go back to mummy!

He got out of car and came next to my seat door, opened it, pulled me out and started pushing me back into the car but this time at the back seat of the car. “Let me go, I don't want to go in there. No! No! No! Stop it please.... No! Stop touching me there. Stop! It hurts!!! IT HURTS!”

“If you don’t stop screaming I would cut you into pieces… there is no one here to listen to your screeching.”

“Get off me, you cruel scoundrel!!! It’s bleeding. You have a daughter of my age you said, would you do this to her too?”

He went loose, left my hands, he got off me, went numb and busted into tears. I didn’t wait to see his expressions, just took a chance and somehow managed to run away with heavy and painful lower body.

I was lucky enough to find a PCO nearby at a motel. I telephoned my mummy

“Hello”

“Hello…. Hello mummy can you hear me? Mummy it’s me- Sarah.”

“Yes baby I can hear you…speak dear”

“Mummy I was caught by a creepy man. He was taking me somewhere but I managed to run out from him after an hour of  his inappropriate  behavior. Please come soon mummy to fetch me.”

       As I was about to tell her the location, the telephone disconnected. I tried to redial the number but it kept on saying “switched off.” I asked the receptionist to tell me the direction for the washroom. The washroom was located at a distance in the same wing; I had to pass through several rooms in the same passage. As I was heading towards the washroom, I accidentally happened to hear a voice- a voice that was telling

“James … James we have to leave and find Sarah, she has been through a mess. I don’t know where she is but we need to find her. Let’s go James, c’mon…”

 It was my mummy’s voice. I was very happy and relieved. I tried to find out from where and which room the voice was knocking out.

Suddenly a sound of a slap and “you go if you want to… I don’t care!!! For me my work is more important than your stupid daughter.”

I tried peeping in the room through the key hole; couldn’t see my mum dad, but I saw a camera, two- three people roaming here and there and…. And a small girl of my age with a man on the bed…

I was broken, completely broken…. Now I never wanted to go back to my mum dad. I wanted to run away from them, forever. I couldn’t even imagine that my mum dad would be involved in all this- the thing that was a deadly feeling and an experience for me.  Even that creepy man was one of the people who were working with my mum dad itself. I slept in the benches of church that night. In the morning, the mother of the church comes up to me, I tell her the whole story, and she admits me in her convent. After a month, the news revealed that my mum dad are arrested for drug dealing and human trafficking. All the girls that forcefully worked for my mum dad’s organization were set free. I found my way and became a nun. Now the question is “would these girls find a respectful way of life?”

Now I have grown young and I have become a nun.  It was very hard for me to spend these fearful years. I missed my mum dad too, but the very next moment I developed a heavy hatred for them. I cried when I heard the arrest news of my mum dad, but deep in my heart I attained peace.

This was the secret I hid from all, even my parents. Only the mother of the church, my lord, and I knew this. But I never told the mother that the arrested people were my mum dad themselves.

I then realized that – ‘YOU  CAN  LOSE  TRUST  AND  YET  LIVE  YOUR  LIFE,  BUT ALWAYS  LET  THE  HOPE  GLEAM  IN  YOUR  HEART  FOREVER.’