Creative Writing – Paralleled

 

By Saffron Sener | News Editor

December 1, 2015

 

Rima sits.

She knows nothing but the pain in her feet

from walking

and walking

and walking

for what has seemed to her

a million years.

 

Grace laughs.

A lady with no name coats her delicate toes

with a careful shade of red

that matches her fingernails

and coat.

 

Rima fears the way before her.

Stories of hatred leak from the soil of this unknown country.

Her hope is what heals her

for in a world that

hates her

for the religion she believes,

the country she comes from,

and the skin she so proudly wears,

that is all she has.

 

Grace begs.

Mother forbids excursions on week nights.

Her plan to sneak out is what comforts her

for in a world that

rests on a fragile balance

of following the rules

and the important,

easily broken

social status,

equilibrium is difficult to find.

 

Rima is turned away.

Attacks in her far-off, well dreamt

City of Lights

has ensured that her people are

barred from all entrance

Why don’t its people understand that she is coming

from a place of humanity’s hell?

No one she could imagine would ever wish to recreate

the flaming

bloody

chaos

she once called home.

 

Grace is caught.

A unfortunate placing of feet revealed

her escape scheme.

Don’t her parents understand

that to miss this party

is to commit social suicide?

 

Rima dies.

Her corpse is found frozen

dead of winter

beside train tracks leading to Austria

malnourished

starving

and cold.

Her last thoughts

were of the dreamy land

she hoped to call home

and her family left in Syria.

 

Grace dies.

Metaphorically, of course.

Her friends poke fun at her prudish nature

and strict parents.

Social despair such as this

was unbearable.

Why couldn’t she embody the way

America is portrayed in the movies,

to eat

and drink

and do nothing but have fun

at all hours of the

day?

 

Rima and Grace

both sixteen.

Doomed

to a world

that regards them

as bitter unequals.