Feed on
Posts
Comments

A Virgin in Virginia

Dear Holy Blessed Virgin Mother,

Forgive me, for I have sinned. When I told Mama about it, she slapped me in the face. She said it was my fault, even though I tried to tell her that I’m still a virgin, but she went to the doors and pulled them open so I could see all the drowned houses and trees and things all jumbled up together below the hill and she said look what you did don’t you see what you’ve done? I tried to tell her I know well I mean I know but I didn’t know that this would happen. Then she made me go and tell Father Jake and then I had to stand on the altar and tell everyone else to just before the service and Mrs. Jackson started to cry because her son Jamie got killed when the basement filled with water and he couldn’t get out and Noah cried because his dads in the hospital with a broken leg and now he knows its because of me. Everyone was yelling and crying and then Father took me over to the font and made me put my hands in it to drown the devil out of them. I had to stand there like that for the whole service and after a while I couldn’t feel my hands and when I pulled them out they were all rinkly. For his sermon Father talked about Lilith and how her breasts were filled with poison instead of milk and that if she hadn’t been such a selfish hor then her and Adam could’ve gone on living in Eden forever and nothing bad would have ever happened to anybody.  Now I’m in one of the bedrooms on the second floor and Mama told me I also had to write this to you. I’m not allowed to eat dinner tonight. She says when its safe to go and look through the house I can only keep my white dresses. Then later before I go to bed I have to soak my hands in holy water again. I think that she’s going to give me the belt. Jenny got it right after her older sister got pregnant and she could barely walk because the metal was so tight on her hips and between her legs. After a while she couldn’t even go outside during gym because the sun would heat it up so bad she’d get burns. I hate Virginia. Well actually just Milk and Honey. I’ve never seen the rest of Virginia except in pictures. Were not even a town. On the news the reporters call it a commune and sometimes a cult. Father Jake says they’re heethens. They don’t understand what we do. I don’t think were as bad as all that ether. We’ve got houses and a school with a playground and a big garden and a church on a hill and school five days a week and church every afternoon and its not really like what they say on the news because they only hurt us when we do something bad. Isn’t that how regular homes all go? I thought they did. Okay wait I don’t hate Milk and Honey. Forgive me. It just gets boring here sometimes even with internet and other things for fun. We only get screens for an hour a day. Last winter Henry got in trouble for sneaking out in his father’s truck to Richmond. He didn’t even do anything he just sort of walked around for a few hours. When he got back Father Jake made him pray for forgivness out in the cold all night and in the morning he had to go to the hospital for numonia. But Father didn’t know about the pictures and videos he’d taken on his phone of the city and later he showed them to some of us. I thought it looked pretty even if it was full of sinners. I feel sick again. I’ve thrown up three times today and four times yesterday. All I can think about is Jamie and Noahs dad and all the rest of them. Some of them were even younger than me. The night before last when we were still in the house Ellies refrigerator floated right up to our doorstep and I could hear it smacking into the front door and I almost had a heart attack because I thought it was the devil come to take me away. Mama says that in some other places they cut the girls when their born to stop them from going impure like I did am and they grow up good and perfect. Maybe thats what she’s planning to do to me now. Maybe it will take away these other bad feelings to. Forgive me Mother forgive me. I’ll die a virgin to if thats what you want. If you’ll help those poor souls up to Heaven. Or maybe you can send them back. Maybe I’ll be the next Virgin Mother and have dozens of reeinkarnated babies and they can spread your love through the world and make it so theres no bad things in the world anymore, just like Eden. I think there going to throw me out just like they did with Jenny’s sister for being a hor. Were will I go? I don’t know were my father is so I couldn’t stay with him. And I’m still five years from being 18 so I can’t just go on my own. Oh Mother please don’t let them throw me out. I’ll be so good for the rest of my life. I’ll never sin again. I think God is starting to forgive me to because the waters gone down a bit. I can see the semetary and the playground and a few houses. I can see the stars and the moon shining down on the water. I wish that I’d been born on Mars maybe. Maybe thats were I can go. I have to bury this note once I’m finished right under your statue in the churchyard. When I went outside after the last rain you were facing away looking down towards the water and all the dead floating by. The wetherman said back on Tuesday that the hurricane was supposed to miss us. Everyone was so happy they said of course it would we were so good and faithful and true and we held an extra service that evening to thank God and praise him and I snuck out early and went back to my room so I could look a little longer at the old boyband magazine from Jenny and that piece between my legs was going and going so much that I had to reach for it and after I fell asleep and then when I woke up the wind was screaming and the branches were all hitting the window and the rain was drumming on the roof and thats when I knew. I can hear Mama down the hall heating up the water. Its gonna hurt so bad. I want to die. I want to die to. Please take me away. Please let me go.

Your Faithful Servant,

Ada

One Response to “A Virgin in Virginia”

  1. Mary: This is beautifully written and evocative. Maybe it will evolve into a longer project? I hope so.

Leave a Reply