When the Floor Drops

CHAPTER 1

I used to think the sky was the only thing no one could own. Not the police, the judges, or decent people. But everyone and everything had a price. Especially politicians, so-called leaders, and pillars of our society.

I realized later in life that we were nothing but currency and bargaining chips to those who thought they held power. They always acted as if the system that was supposed to protect us didn’t apply to them.

Before it was too late, I learnt that “protection” came with a daily cost. It’s paid in fear and silence. It was a byproduct of the environment we lived in. A place where the sky didn’t flinch when gunshots popped. It didn’t turn its face when somebody’s mother started wailing. It stayed blue, bright, mocking blue, with no business being so beautiful over everything happening beneath it.

But it wasn’t that part that mattered. Between me and the blue sky was the window. Thick iron bars bolted deep into concrete. The black paint was chipping down to a crusty brown rust. If you pressed your forehead against the metal long enough, it left deep lines in your skin. It’s like being stamped and filed away.

In the mornings, I would stand there with my fingers curled around the cold iron. I often looked out, reaching through the gaps, hoping to pull a different life back inside. But I never could. So, I live with the reality before me. Not the dream I desire it to be.

In this reality, I am a teenage girl living in an orphanage. Not an ideal place to grow up. But it was the only home I knew, ever since I was eleven years old. And this was where my story began.

My place of residence, if you want to call it that, was a building surrounded by grass and dirt, with patches of concrete. It often gets hot enough to fry an egg on them, if you believe in wasting eggs.

The perimeter fence leaned at a tired angle where boys used to climb it. Well, at least until they got older, and the only climbing they did was into people’s pockets. Where their dignity was bought and sold and their aspirations died. That’s how far many had strayed beyond the fenceline.

Besides that, the community was no different from others like it.

There was a single road with a stretch of deep potholes and a streetlight that had been dead for years. As a substitute, someone hung a regular bulb with a cord to the post. The light was dim, but it did its best to fight the shadows.

On both sides were zinc fences that had seen better days. The word LOVE had faded in the sunlight, only to be strangled by newer jagged paint that screamed DIE over it.

Out there, people walked with purpose. Nobody lingered unless they were waiting to do something bad. No one ever grew up aspiring to do bad things. But sometimes the environment and circumstances led many innocent kids down that path.

Just the thought of a hopeless future caused me to pull my fingers from the bars. It left rust on my palm. I brushed them off against the wall. But it left a faint orange smudge on the concrete. I quickly used the hem of my shirt to wipe the area clean, but it didn’t go away, so I turned back to my bunk bed and sat down.