All The Unsent Letters: A Not So Cheap Girl From Iraq's Country Side

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Her twenty-five years passed quickly, though the clock ticked slowly at her grandfather's house. She lost her father at the age of seven and lived as a stranger in the rooms of her relatives' homes, sometimes her aunt scolded her, once her brother broke her, and she got used to a life that is not like life, she got used to her narrow room and screaming around her, she is used to a homeland she didn't know until today!

She sent me a letter complaining about an unfair fate, an unfair society, and a sky that looks pitch-black despite the sunrise every day. The days there are like the borders of cemeteries, like the grave they put her inside by her cradle, by her father's kisses who left her between the flood of shame and forbidden, only Because she is a female!

I received her message like other broken ones behind the walls of the houses, behind the bars of cement prisons!

She said:

I am twenty-five years old, do you understand what these years mean, stranger? Do you understand how I used to live and am still imprisoned by sin I did not choose, imprisoned for a crime I did not commit, imprisoned for the guilt I never did!

I was born into a very ordinary family, with my sister and three of my brothers, and it does not matter how old my brothers are, they are all older than me in terms of life, rights, and everything because they are males. Because they were created male like this and fate decided that moment that I will be a female!

She adds:

I don't want to talk about what happened and how the years passed, I'm talking about today, about my postponed life, which I missed a long time ago, I'm talking about today, do you understand me?

Please understand me, I'm not silly, I don't want anything from you, I don't want anything great, I want someone to understand me if only once!

I did not leave the limits of the yard of the house except for the university, which was like another prison, with another air, of terror that haunts me every day to go and return, everyone is watching me, everyone looks at me as if waiting for me to slip once.

"Why are you several minutes late?"
"Why didn't you go to university today?"

Why and why? I am required to prove everything, everything they think is a court ruling, and I am accused in any case!

I live in my family’s house in Baghdad, I finished my studies after four years, I kept looking for a job to live from, to buy myself my own needs, and after a year and strenuous attempts, I found a job with a low salary.

But I would like to prove myself, that the simplest thing a person has the right to try is to prove themselves.

They stood against me, the next day my mother came to tell me about the existence of a "groom", this is the savior, as if my life should be naked and incomplete, and it is not correct without the presence of a male!

The family of the "groom" came and I refused to come down from my room, I refused to walk in front of the eyes of women examining my body to describe it to their son or brother, I am not cheap, I am not cheap. I repeated this in front of my aunt and my mother, and in vain they forced me to go down!

Are you with me? Do you understand what I said above? Do you already feel? Do you know what I'm saying!

I will continue to talk and it does not matter who understands and who does not. I went down the steps the stairs, surrounded by my mother, my aunt, my cousins, and also young children looking at me with astonishment and shame, they also do not know the fate of their lives in this society!

I descended as a victim dragged by butchers, as stale goods from which they want to be saved, like a rusty vessel that has no place in the closets of the house!

That's how I feel, that's the truth, that's what they did to me. I, their daughter, I'm their flesh and blood, and I'm what they call me their honor!

All this is in order to stand in front of my dream of working, in front of a simple ambition that any other girl achieves by working and preserving her dignity from asking and begging.

How do they love me and all want me to remain dependent on someone? They want to throw me on a man who buys me from them to relieve their dead conscience!

All this because I found work, fortunately, the marriage did not take place, I did not like the sisters of the cowardly “groom” nor his mother, this is the best thing that happened, I thank God very much for this!

I insisted on working, and finally succeeded, and the suffering of transportation began, did I not tell you that we must be dependent, everything in this society is arranged in order to be dependent and deficient, even labor takes advantage of our circumstances, about half of my salary goes to the driver.

I spent a year in the trouble of transportation, and the hurtful words of my aunts from time to time. Eid is approaching, and you don't know, stranger, that I had forgotten what Eid means, my last smile was in my father's embrace on Eid eighteen years ago!

Since my birth, I have not traveled anywhere, I have not gone out of these borders, and I do not even have a passport! I am twenty-five years old, I am a citizen of a country that asks me to grovel to one of the family’s males in order to issue me a passport, and then grovel again to allow me to travel, I began to doubt that I am a citizen, I doubt that I exist!

My co-workers talk about their travels, their outings, the joy of traveling, they talk about the things they have that I only see through the windows of shops and TV ads.

I am not poor, I am not destitute, but I am lifeless, without choice, the circumstances of my colleagues helped them at least to know the feeling of happiness at least/

But I am an orphan from everything, even the simplest feelings of joy! This is your part of the prison, only one line of tragedies that are repeated every moment, and you can imagine the rest of the details of what we live. You have the right to be a human and a choice to feel something from what we suffer!

I told you, I don't want anything from you, just do you understand me? Do you feel me and the thousands of prisoners of the cursed fates and conditions? If you understand, thank you, if you don't, we are used to disappointments!