My Unwoman Journey

My name is Ofwinston . this is my attempt at telling the world my story .

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I feel like one of those women from the Salem Witch trials.... 

[ofwinston-blog]

Today

 Today I woke to the same dark ceiling, the same soft pillow. I went out of my room and into the main area of our cabin. Eric served me a bowl of watery soup as the others who live here questioned me about the world we are no longer a part of. They all seemed to know a lot about me. I guess we have all been through the same horror, the same trial, the same bus ride to the middle of no where and walk to the town. Town? compound? prison?

 They were all sympathetic enough but I feel like they do not trust me yet.

We walked together to the center of the yard to a small square stage where a vast, regal looking woman was standing with a bundle of fabric. More women were gathering and I asked Eric what was going on, she told me that they have decided to let me stay. I wonder what happens to the ones who aren’t allowed. Do they just get shoved out to the wilderness to die in the cold?

They pushed me onto the platform while around me the talking of the women made a buzz like insects, my head was starting to spin, then a throat cleared. Silence. I was momentarily taken aback at the speed in which this woman quieted the crowd, at the control she has over these women, but she was smiling at me now asking me to say my name.  I hardly whispered the word, Ofwinston. The woman stood arms akimbo and as though the words were a prayer she almost chanted “Here we are all made anew” She seemed to be addressing the whole crowd and just me simultaneously. “Here we shed our former names and remake ourselves as whole people” The women were chanting now “Winston” “Winston” “Winston” sending a shiver up my spine, I felt exposed and like I didn’t know where to look or what to do in this strangest of ceremonies. She continued “Here we shed the demeaning ‘of’ and take our place as equals!” The chanting was louder now, the insects had turned into wolves howling at their leader when suddenly the tension broke and they reached up and swarmed the platform grabbing at me and ripping the clothes from my frame. The receded like a wave leaving me exposed and bare, alone with her on the platform, she gave me the bundle of fabric which I found was different clothes. I pulled on my new identity as the women cheered. Women with men’s names and wearing men’s clothes. I feel as though I have traded one costume for another I wonder if there is any where else where I can go. But I know the answer to that question. 

What will tomorrow bring? 

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My first day in the colony

I remember a feeling of confusion, and that my mouth felt like it was filled with cotton, my head filled with bees. Waking to a dark ceiling and a hard cot, but the pillow was soft under my tender bandaged head. I lied there for several minutes before I worked up the courage to make a noise, I squeaked a timid hello?

A woman poked her head around the door, her hair was shoulder-length and orderly she said her name was Eric. She brought me a broth in a metal bowl and fixed the bandage on my head. Bandages are poor replacement for wings. I slept again for several hours. 

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The first thing I remember

from that first, or is it last, day is waking up on a bus. I remember peeling my face off the window seeing the red smear where blood from somewhere near my temple had gone tacky and congealed on the cold glass. Trying to feel the side of my face where the butt of a rifle had landed but realizing that my hands were shackled to the arm rest. A man in black sitting up front making some comment to the driver and then laughing at my expense, something about red really being my color. The rest is foggy I remember being lifted from my seat by the man in black, his hands greedily groping along my forearms as he removed my shackles, finally settling on my upper arm with an iron grip as he dragged me to the front of the bus. 

I was alone on an empty road, the worlds biggest driveway, a glint of metal at the end that I assumed was a gate of some sort. The man murmured something about there normally being someone there to meet the bus. But the crime of showing caring towards an unwoman was greater than his guilt at leaving me, I sank to my knees and cried as I watched the dust flee back to the society I could not find my place in. 

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A view of the town 

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Today I am sitting down to a computer for the first time in years. An ancient monitor, ballooning out behind the screen my fingers pumping out the staccato of the typed word, an irregular heartbeat in the space of my room. This is my room, a five by seven rough floored and metal walled box with a cot pushed to the left and this my desk my computer an old school chair and desk. 

I feel as though for the first time I am doing something important. I am keeping a record.