Slide 20: Becoming a woman
Her name was Debbie, she was always smiling, her cheeks where rosy, her skin was white and beautiful, her eyes where green, her hair was long and bright orange almost to the point of being unnatural looking, her feet where bare and tiny as her hands, and over her small body she wore a thin lose white dress flowing all around her. She held a basket naked inside on her left hand. She skipped along the path. The night was underway, it was engaged! It was the middle of November, the barry harvest season. The only time of year that was slightly cold was October through January, everything was fairly hot all year round so the colder seasons where very wanted. Even though it was rather cold that night she still wore the thin white dress for that was what her people wore when they rather berries, it was the garb of the young virgin girls, for only the virgin girls where allowed to pluck berries when they reached the age of 13. But the years around Debbie's birth had not been very thriving, and the only babes born in her year where boys and those where only in the number of four. So she was alone that night, all through the winder season she had been plunging berries by herself so she had been very busy, most of the morning she slept all the through it because she had stayed up too long that night plunging. All her older and younger girlfriends had felt bad for her and asked her about the night every day when she was up, but Debbie enjoyed the gathering a lot for many reasons. One she wanted to make the whole village very proud, and they where proud! At first they almost didn't let her do it on her own but her speed had changed their minds and she was off, it was also unpleasant to think of a little orange 13 year old girl going out alone with no one else with it. But it was there costume for the girls to go alone with no one else following. The people in the village lived busy rouph lives, but they where weathy and well fed, but that was only because of their collective hard work, anyone who didn't work hard was rejected, hard work was there way of life by all means. So at the age of 13 you where considered a man or a woman of 'young age' no longer called a child. At 13 men started farming and hunting and handy work across town, and the women where assigned older mother's in town, and the young women where help the older woman clean her house, raise her children or maybe even grandchildren, and care for the house's personal garden. And three years after basic work, a 16 year old man would be matched with a 16 year old woman and they would wed, and the man would be either assigned to live in his father's house, repair a older home in need of family, or build his own home. And the woman would be assigned to make that house a home and as soon as possible bare a child, or if a child did not come soon raise any motherless children in the village. That had been the way for many many hundreds of years, they had taken there ways from the old country they came from at the turn of the century. But the turn of 13 was important, so they celebrated it. At 13 no one had a 'birthday' celebration by them self. They had join birthdays for the girls and the boys every year when the boys turned of age and the girls did. The boy's birthdays where in June, and they spread out into the forests by themselves for a week long hunting trip, they would need to bring back as many meat as possible and also eat there own food. That year's hadn't been all that large as you can imagine since there was only four boys born 13 years ago. And for the girls- well you already know. So Debbie was proud of herself for being the only one, she was busy but held her head up high and smiled rosy and wide. But it also scared her more then a little. The night made strange noises every once and a while, and sometimes she thought she could hear something alive in the back russle or jump around, watching her seeing if she wanted to do them hard. The color of the forest of green and orange and the planets blown round and the sky was very red most of the time. The trees where not very long but their leaves where very very thick and a dark green and fell down around her and made the path below her feet very deep. She kept worrying her bare feet would touch up against a bug or she would step on a big fat old spider. But she hadn't done anything like that , at least yet anyway. Suddenly she gasped and looked behind herself. She thought someone was following her, and there was, but she signed for it was only a cat old white cat starting at her with bored eyes. "Don't scare me like that! You should have mowed if you where going to follow me!" The cat didn't say anything but looked vagary disappointed in himself. Debbie turned away shaking her head and the moon white cat followed along behind her soon coming up right behind her. They walked along the dark path and the soon in the distance saw a little creek path along the path they where on, there was a log across that creek and Debbie had walked across it every night so she known it well now. When she got there she walked across the log and to the other side connoting on her way, the cat took a little longer on the path but never the less followed her. Somewhere in the distance she thought she her a owl, and howled out to it but it didn't call back. "Maybe you shouldn't have come along fat old cat." Debbie told the white hair ball and he didn't say anything. The cat remained unnamed since so one in town was sure if he was a boy or a girl, but let me tell you listener I know he was a boy. The cat followed her for like the village he was worried for the girl, and the girl would rather not have him along since she wanted to do it alone as she had for all the other nights she had been hard at work picking. They walked on the dark path still and she lips turned into a thick grin when she saw it. There it was, the barrie patch, little red dots all along the way patching the green like jewels of light. Debbie skipped along the path grinned and finally she sat down by the bushes hands cupped on her lap as she started plunging berries and dropping them into her basket. The cat stayed with her for a good hour just watching her and licking himself, but soon even his care got boring and he walked out of the path all the way home leaving her there. She was too engrossed in her gathering to really notice the cat leave, it's hard noticing when cats leave in general actually, they come and go as they please. The forest hid that. Her basket was looking very very nice. It grown in it's reddened and thickness it was becoming full and pregnant. Finally after three hours her basket was full and that area of the woods was empty no more bushes with red in the path, there was more outback in the distance but that was for other nights and not that night. When she finally stood up signing and looking at her nice and thick basket thinking of all the pies that would be made, she looked up into the sky and small little purple stars in the sky, and a red moon of in the distance like one of those stars barely even closer to her. And then she was looking forward to the future. And finally she felt like she was on the path of becoming a real woman.
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