The Antelope's Journey

1. My life is my own

“My life is my own. My life is my… “

Francina sat shivering by the side of the street mummering to herself. She was on the pavement, her elbows clenched around her knees. It had just stopped raining. The street lights shone on the dull city. She was drenched and cold, but she would not move. Clearly, she was destressed.

Her memories were very vivid. She just had another fight with her father. “You tried to run away again?” he had been yelling at her. “You work for me; you help me settle my debts! Your job is to fix cars, and we sell them. I own you, little twerp!” They were in her father’s garage. It was all messy and stuffed with all the tools and car parts, and some grease on the floor and on the walls. The scrapped car took almost the entire room. She had no distance to maintain from him, for that he could easily throw his palms on her swollen cheeks. “I do everything for you. Yet, you cannot do me one job!”

Splash! A car just drove by and wheeled over the pond of rain all over her. The car continued driving away. Unbothered by that, she dwelled back on her memories. In those very moments she remembered to look into the moon and talk to it.

“You are so cruel.” She said to the moon, “Why did you leave me here?!” There was always something magical about the moon that encouraged her to engage in a conversation with it. The moon would sizzle with a bewitching glow every time she looked at it. From time to time, she’d see moving figures in that moon’s shades.

……….

It was only in the morning that she was woken by the pedestrians walking by. It was yet another normal day again; school kids strolling to school too cool to rush, vendors stationed by the sidewalks, youths on the crosswalks and cars stuck in traffic. “Did you sleep here?”

She turned and saw the young man talking to her. He appeared in his mid-20s, like herself. He offered her a sandwich. She only launched up and began gearing back home. He was left dumbfounded.

She was very hesitant on walking in. Their fight did not end well the last night. She remembered she had spun a lug wrench—one of the metal tools—across his face busting his nose. This was something, she’d never attempt doing before. It terrified her what he would do in return. At some point she had to face him and she thought, the sooner the better. Gently, she reached for the door handle—

THUD!

A loud sound came from within and shortly, a few groans and a gun shot. What was going on in there? She could only recognize her father’s crying voice and not that of the roaring men. She thought she’d go around the house and peek in through the window to get a glimpse of what was going on inside. Quickly, she leaned back for a head start, but she bounced from a giant man’s big belly behind her.

Immediately, the giant shoved her in. She would struggle in his grip for an escape but he was too big. He held her at tight leash. She found two more strange men in her living room. One sat elegantly on the sofa and the other was handling a bar in his grip—standing behind her father. Her father was on his knees. He had his palms together in what seemed like he was begging the man sitting on the sofa. The sophisticated man on the sofa had himself a cup of tea, he had his last sip and he splashed the rest on the man on his knees. It burned. The man yelped.

Francina could almost make sense of what was going on. Are these loan sharks here to collect their money? She saw the red pond pouring from her father’s thigh, his face was severely bruised and the house was turned upside down. The two men hovering around had steel bars in their hands and the boss had his gun pointed at her father.

The giant held out Francina’s bicep, her short sleeve revealed a diamond patch on her bicep. On the diamond patch was the inscription, WIC. “Well-well,” the boss seemed pleased to see the mark, “just the person I wanted to see. I must say, I was expecting a boy. I was told it was a son.”

“What exactly are you doing here?” Francina asked. She had her own natural scowl on her face. She easily gave off a very stoic and hostile impression.

“Oof! The force in you, and the anger. The thirst for blood.” The boss had his eyes set on her closely inspecting what he thought he saw, “I think she’ll do.”

“See? I told you! I told I don’t have no boy—”

The boss had already gotten on his feet, he was not hesitant on pulling the trigger, poking a deep hole in the father’s forehead. “You could’ve just said it’s a girl.” He then started walking out, “Well, we came and we got what we wanted. Boys… and girl, now we must leave.”