When my fist clenches to crack you open
Learn and remember why I lose my cool
When I smile to tell you some bad omens
Don't be surprised if I act like a fool

The storm lasted until dawn and peacefully faded away, as the sun expanded its arms on the city. The air refreshed by a whole night of rain was still moist and misty. Timidly, the birds came out of their shelters to enjoy the morning peace and dry their feathers. 

I listened to their chirping for a while, unable to move, unable to think… Unable to hold the blood from drooling out of my mouth. Yet, this was the most peaceful morning I remembered having in years.

They found me just before breakfast - they being a young lark trying to get the first gallons of hot water before the shower rush. She got the scare of her life, and certainly did all the birds after hearing her scream. Honesty, I can’t blame her, knowing the state I was left in.

My tormentors had shaved my head. Pretty roughly, leaving behind some clump of hairs and bleeding cuts. My clothes, I heard, were found later in the toilets, while they had dressed me up with a bra and a mini skirt. My arms attached to the pipe, I was sitting on the floor, my legs wide opened, a thong hanging on my ankle.

I was out most of the time. Barely able to open my eyes, so much my face was swollen and bruised. I still had moments of clarity. I recall looking at the floor, thinking how dirty it had become and how much of a pain cleaning it would be. My arms were numb. Every whiff, a stab of fire in my chest. But the clearest memory was the expressions on everyone’s faces as they gathered to read the dripping message painted in black on the walls and me:

“I'M A DIRTY WHORE”

Curiosity. Chock. Thrill. Excitement. And on one face, a profound deception. The chairman was staring at me, as murmurs were running behind him. He was silent but his eyes had a familiar tone. Something that reminded me of furred slippers and porcelain dogs. Déjà vu…

Curtly, he ordered the staff to take me away. There was panic and frustration in his voice. “Out. Everyone, out!!”

They cut my ties, releasing my sleepy arms which awoke a wave of pain in my left shoulder. I almost fainted when they lifted me up and dragged me out. Laying on them, they had to readjust their grip a few times, to finally move me properly. Near the door, Jeremiah’s eyes were sifting my body the whole time. For a second, I caught his gaze but I collapsed before grasping his expression.

When I woke up, several hours later, I was lying down in the infirmary. My entire body was sore and lifeless; I couldn’t even open my mouth. As the windows were facing a wall, a very small amount of light was making its way in. Somehow, I was grateful for the shade and quiet.

Somewhere near the door, whispers were hissing. I recognized that high pitch immediately. Though, without his usual enthusiasm, he sounded surprisingly more stern. “Are you sure?”

“He is severely wounded, but not in that manner,” said the nurse with a soothing voice. “The hospital checkup will help to confirm it…”

“Has he broken anything?” cut the chairman, definitely in a bad mood.

“Uh… No.” The nurse halted. “Aside from his nose and, I think, a couple of ribs.”

“So no serious bones,” hurried the chairman. “He is fine, then!”

“His shoulder needs to be fixed.”

“But this can be done here, right?” The nurse mumbled something inaudible. “Then, it is settled,” declared the chairman before lowering his voice to a pressing tone, when the nurse continued her arguing. “I think it is better if we keep this affair between us. We can’t have such a story going public.”

“But the kids know,” remarked the nurse.

“Who’s going to believe them?” My heart raced for an instant hearing that. “Are those his teeth?” The nurse confirmed and said they were still good. “Then put them back in. Oh… and a second checkup can’t hurt. Make sure he is really fine.” That time it sounded like a threat. “It is already bad as it is. I don’t want to add a scandal to it.”

The chairman sighed, swore and left the room saying he had other matters to attend to. He never bothered coming to my bed or tried to see if I was awake. In fact, he made sure to never have to interact with me during this whole affair.

When I heard the door shutting behind the fading sound of his footsteps, it felt like a chapter of my life had been forcefully closed. My chest became heavy and it wasn’t because of my broken ribs.

Outside, life was carrying on. I could hear the playful screams escaping from the courtyard, as the window was open. I was about to close my eyes when I noticed a shadow flickering on the wall. Silently, carried by the wind, a butterfly came in. It flitted around, naively, exploring the room.

It was black and white. With some red dots on the tips of his wings. It looked so fragile. A blow and its body could have easily ripped. Delicately, it started spinning closer to my bed, in quest of a proper perch to land on. Part of me wanted to tease it to see if it would have enough instinct to escape or if it would instead trust me and touch down on my finger. I thought of how another person would have caught it and pulled its wings off, for their own pleasure of being in control or simply to satisfy a predatory impulse. But I was too tired to do anything. Or maybe, I wanted this instant to last. I watched it approach my hand and, not without difficulty, I opened it to welcome the visitor.

The nurse came back just at that moment and scared my companion away. “Oh! Those things just won’t bugger off!” She complained, while putting a small container filled with milk next to my bed. With both hands, she swatted the bug in flight and tossed it irreverently in the bin. I clenched my fist.

Seeing I was awakened, she unscrewed the top of the container and using a pair of tweezers, she took a tooth out to place it in a small puncher rod. With one hand, the way you would do with a dog, she opened my mouth large enough to slide the tube in. The pain from just moving my jaw was already bad enough. And yet...

Despite being conscious enough to complain, I only managed to moan a breathless whine to manifest my discontentment. “OK, stay still,” said the old nurse, before snapping my molar back in its socket, liberating an electric shock in what was left of my chin. Before I could recover from it, she slotted my second tooth back in - an incisive this time - which awoke my broken nose.

A second later, I was laying on my side, my left arm held above me. “It’ll be over soon,” she said and snapped on my shoulder back, with no warning. I felt my arm bone slid under my muscle with the most brutal pain that made me regret the tooth session. The sensation of relief was immediate. I could move my shoulder again but the lingering burn I was left with, had me curled up in my bed, with the grueling urge to cry.

The nurse caressed my scalp in a compassionate gesture and tucked the bed sheet around me. I don’t know if it was the exhaustion, the pain, the sudden drop of adrenaline or her simple touch, but the moment she left, the heaviness I felt in my chest finally cracked and, while sending to hell my remaining composure, I conked out, holding on my shoulder, tears running down my face.

Obviously, my internship went down the drain, seeing I couldn’t attend the gig, and that probably was the only positive point of this whole situation. On the counterpart, they kept me in quarantine, even after I was able to get up. It wasn’t hard to guess they were hoping that the affair would die on its own if I stayed away from the public eye. But, even though, at that moment, I didn’t want to see anyone either, I still felt chastised.

On the first days, I didn’t think much of it, as I was mostly sleeping. But after a week, I became a bit more aware of my sudden absence of human contact. Even when you live in a monastic silence, you have some sort of social interaction. Not then. My recovery was slowly turning into a solitary confinement. No one came to ask me what happened that night, nobody even cared to wonder if I remembered anything. I thought they were waiting for me to be in better shape, but after a while, it became clear that it was in nobody’s interest to start an investigation. Hopefully, I wasn’t counting on them to do anything about it. My brain on the other hand was not letting it go.

As strange as it was, my aggression exorcised me from my ghosts. But what they got replaced by was no improvement. Every bit of sleep I was having, was reviving that night run and what they did to me. Of course, I tried to escape from it, but seeing I was getting nowhere, I just let it happen and replayed the whole movie, over and over. And over again.

The hardest part was to prevent my mind from altering my memories, for self-esteem purposes or for denial ones. I knew remembering them would no matter what destroy the actual truth. So I had to focus on details that weren’t linked to the action but were sure facts. The voices. Their body shapes. Little by little, other details came back. The leader had clear eyes. Green or gray. And the guy that dislocated my shoulder, he was walking putting more weight on his left leg. It was giving him a unique gait.

I am certain I heard his voice, somewhere.

When they finally let me out of the infirmary, a month had passed. I was still not allowed back in my quarters but I could finally eat with everyone else. It was like reintroducing a wounded wild animal in its natural habitat. After being on a liquid diet for chewing issues, I had lost in muscle mass, and with my shaved head, I guessed the spectacle I was offering surprised a bit everyone. But I ignored the comments, the giggles, the “It’s him” and finger pointing as my ghostly ass was making his way in the corridors. My head was focusing on one thing and one thing only: tracking down every voices I could hear around me.

I would purposely come at the rush hours of every communal moment, to imprint myself with a maximum of sound, distilling them, eyes closed, sitting alone at my table as everyone was keeping a hygienic perimeter around me. I spent a good amount of time outside observing the boys doing sport, in hope to find my guys. But rumors had preceded me, and very quickly no one wanted to practice when I was nearby looking. Something about me being a horny pervert or something. After a second thought, seeing that I had bitten one of them, and how hard they went on me, they probably avoided moments that could reveal their scuffle marks. Even though most of them were probably gone by now, if they had any. After all, they were wearing gloves for a reason.

As I was no longer allowed in the showers, I resigned myself to simply look at every hand I could set my eyes on. Hoping to see bruises or scratches. But most importantly, I listened. Continuously.

After a few days, I was still at it, realizing I didn’t have any super power. Yet I continued to do it, almost like a meditation, every time I was joining them for dinner.

One evening, I was walking down the alley with my tray, spacing out on everyone’s discussions. “So in the end, they had me carry the whole rack back to…” “…I’d be surprised if the school even…” “…Oh did I tell you what Jenny…” “Ah! Ah! Ah! I so picture you in that…” “…Dude, he just creeps me out!” “Hold on, I got an idea.”

My heart skipped a beat. That last voice, just then. On my left, a table of high school students. Both girls and boys. Their voices lowered when I passed them, but I caught on a barking giggle that unlocked my memory. I did hear that voice before! I had just never attached a face to it as it was always a lost insult thrown at me from the crowd. Something cowardly, just like hiding under a hood made of a rice sack. “Hey you dropped something, buddy…” A raspy voice suddenly called me.

I turned and saw a large shaped black teen, looking at me with sharp gray eyes and a smile that would have sent Justice herself in prison. Next to him, a white tall guy, with basketball potential, was sitting the wrong way, his arm resting on the edge of the table. His phalanges had old bruises on them. They both glanced at the floor, inviting me to look down. There was an unused condom, near my foot. Just classy enough to start a wave of mockery in the canteen.

Some remained silent though. At the end of the row, I saw Jeremiah staring at me, with an apprehensive look on his face. It might have been my imagination but I think he shook his head discreetly. Disapprobation? Warning? Concern? Sorry but we were too far in the game to back off.

I turned toward my elders, smiling plainly and knelt holding my tray in one hand, to grab the condom. “Thanks, man.” I winked at him, nipping the rubber wrapping between my teeth. Disgusted sounds followed my gesture. The two guys frowned in repulsion and went back to their plates. I pretended to resume looking for a seat, but instead of stepping forward, I grabbed my tray firmly and spun round.

My plate was still flying in the air when my tray smashed on Beef Boy’s skull. In a follow up move, I hit Bean Pole in the face with the corner of it, before throwing the whole thing at his friends across the table. Before any of them had time to understand what was going on, I grabbed Grey Eyes by the neck and shove the condom in his mouth. “Suck on that!” I knocked off his legs and made him fall forward, bashing his face on the table’s edge, under everyone’s shouts of surprise.

First hit. I heard him gasp. Second. I heard a crack and felt him jolt under my palm. On the third time, someone grabbed me by the chest and pulled me away, forcing me to release him. I bawled enraged, watching my target collapsing on the floor, his face covered in blood.

People rushed to help him. He tried to get up, certainly hoping to retaliate but he was too stunned to stand. It was total chaos. Some inmates stepped in, pushing me back or simply trying to create a wall between me and them, until finally the adults decided to interfere.

“SUMMERS!!!!” Shouted suddenly above our heads an authoritarian voice, muting everyone instantly. At the end of the room, the chairman was fuming, out of breath. He had run. That was my first time seeing him since my admission to the infirmary. There was no more pride, no more glee left in that man. Just a pure furor at my intention. “IN MY OFFICE, NOW!!”

With a brusque tilt, I rejected the hands that were holding me and turned to see Jeremiah standing behind me. Without a word, I walked away, cleaning my clothes, and went to meet the chairman. I looked one more time at everyone and the mess I had made. All of them, disturbed and hostile. All of them baffled that I could have riposted. All complicit in my eyes. In their silence, in their amusement, in their neutrality and passivity. Somehow I despised them more than the ones that had beat me up. There was only one thing left to do before taking my leave.

So I raised both my arms high and flipped them off.