Warning: this story contains themes of abandonment, death, and sexual assault. Please advise before reading.

When I passed the corner every day I would look away, unable to watch their pitiful eyes staring up at me. The live ones would cry loudly. They were hungry, thirsty, and cold. They wanted to be held, to feel the warmth of another human being.

The dead ones cried out too, but not in the same way. Their lifeless corpses lay there, silently screaming their pleas to be taken away from their deathbeds. Their ghosts haunted the area, longing to have proper burials if they couldn’t have life. No matter how much they called, though, everyone passed by, leaving them behind.

I am ashamed to say that I was one of those people.

The children, the young mother and her baby, the young woman, the abandoned children. I left them all behind. I didn’t stop to speak with them. I didn’t stop to help. I didn’t see them as human beings, viewing myself as different, superior to those who lived on the streets.

Why? I had everything that they didn’t. I had a home, two parents, a good education. I had friends who could help me and teachers to recommend me to schools that could get me a stable career. I had money for food, clean water to drink, and new clothes to make myself feel pretty.

I had everything, and they had nothing.

It was only some time later when I realized that I, too, had nothing.

I was a fool, thinking that I had everything. When someone says they have everything, they really have nothing.

The world can change at any moment, and mine certainly did.

It was him, that hawker on the street. The hawker at the crooked stone path. The hawker who sold me nuts every morning. It was him.

He saw me. He watched me. And one day he caught me.

He caught me and he took me. It still hurts to say what he did to me, but I’ll tell you it was in the evening when I was walking home alone from school. I’ve learned since to be wary of being alone at night. To be wary of strange men sneaking up behind you in the shadows.

He did it because he knew I couldn’t tell anyone what happened. He knew my parents would’ve disowned me, or shunned me for allowing this to happen. When I did tell them months later they scorned me for letting it happen. They grounded me, forbid me from back to that street, anything to keep it from happening again.

But by then it was too late.

There was already something inside of me, something set in motion the day the Hawker touched me. My parents weren’t completely aware, but it was my body so I knew it.

It was a rainy day when it finally came out: the truth, my shame, my baby.

I went by myself to the clinic to have it delivered, since even though my parents condemned me they wouldn’t have me deliver at home. It was painful and tearful, and oh so lonely. I couldn’t imagine how any woman could bear it once, let alone twice. It took many long hours, but finally it was done, and there my body only felt numb.

But then I saw it. It was a small, scrunched up pink thing with tufts of black hair sprouting from its head. It had two arms, two legs, a nose, two eyes, and a mouth. It didn’t open its eyes. No, it cried out to me. It reached its little arms out for me, begging to be held.

This time I reached out.

When I touched its flesh I felt as if Heaven had opened up for me, clearing away a path to good fortune. There was no one else in the room at that time. They were all out in the hallway, muttering about how sorry they were for me. It didn’t matter.

Then they told me it was a girl.

My heart raced. If it was a boy my parents could’ve lied to our neighbours and said that they’d found it on the streets, or that it was a distant cousin who wanted us to care for it. But no, it was a girl. It had to be a girl. I felt as if Heaven was punishing me. Perhaps it was punishment for leaving the others on the street behind.

When I was allowed to leave, I wrapped the baby in a towel. I couldn’t give it a name, that would be too cruel. But I there was something else I could give it. I could end it right then and there, and never have to worry about it again.