Shinra Vignettes: Elena
By Tini
Chick
Peach
Doll
Honey
Skirt
Dame
Woman
Elena
This may come as a shock, but not all females are women.
Any idiot with the right bits and pieces can fall under the classification
of female, but to be a woman is something entirely different. Men sit back
in bars, fat cigars hanging from between their lips, talking about how much
they love women.
Lying sacks of shit. Men are afraid of women, what they want are females,
cheap tricks with eager lips who know nothing more than how to beg and roll
over.
A woman will take one look at his precious manhood and rip it to shreds with
words alone. Hell, if she’s really a woman he’ll still want her
afterwards.
I’ve been both.
Having power doesn’t automatically make one a woman. Look at Scarlet,
she’ll spread for any guy and she could torch half of Midgar with a
word. Is she a woman? No, hells no. Women can fall from grace, but they never
land on their ass.
None of this ever presented itself to me until the day I became a Turk. Words
still lance through me, simple sentences that have never left my thoughts.
“Elena, you talk too much.”
“Elena, you’re still the rookie.”
“Elena, you’re a Turk. Act like one.”
Act like one? How, by compromising my dignity? By relinquishing self-worth
without a thought to my superiors, that precious and suspiciously male
aristocracy? Of course. And I let them win, for a little while.
I couldn’t help it at the time; Mother always raised me to please, but
never to have common sense. They sucked me in with promises and lies, accepted
silent sweet surrenders I made in the dark underneath their sheets. They
made me feel hot, but their hands were cold, fed with ice water from frozen
hearts. It became a game to see who could be the first to shatter my spirit.
It was only a game if they won.
And they never did.
As far as I’m concerned it was no chore to let those boys know just
how I felt about being a doll, but ask them and they’ll show you scars.
Contrary to the beliefs of hundreds of health class movies, it’s the
day you make a man cry at your feet that you first become a woman, and only
then.
Every day I see it, little girls wounded at the hands of their cruel Romeos,
and despite my sympathy I can’t help but be selfish.
Because I am woman.
Don’t wait to hear me roar, you’ll only be wasting your time. We
women don’t roar.
We scream.
Our own names.
~fin~