the first time – memory | experimental writing

I’ll be sharing some experimental writing here with you. Please feel free to give me feedback, as I am really just stumbling through the darkness with this. I do have to warn you that it might be difficult to read, as I am working on a novel where the main character is a survivor of repeated sexual assaults in her childhood, and only now, some 20 years later, the memories begin to flood her, following her father’s death.So here goes an attempt at her recollecting the first time, how it all started:

“The first time” – version 1 | experimental writing

Memory is a bitch. It plays such vicious tricks on the mind. When was the first time, and how did it grow to become such a monster? Was it summer or winter, spring maybe? Was it when we kids were left to play in unattended bedrooms while the grownups were busy with grown up things? Or was it during the big Eid, when Sitto’s house would be filled and we kids would be sent to play on the roof or in the garden? And why did he choose me, of all eight girl cousins?

I am sitting on the edge of Sahar’s bed, impatiently waiting for her to finish her homework so we can go out and play. He comes into the room, sits down beside me. He doesn’t say anything, just sits and stares straight ahead. Sahar is bent down over her notebook. I don’t look at him. At that age, boys don’t interest me. Suddenly, I feel a warm weight in the middle of my back. I stiffen. I look down into my lap. I don’t understand. I move my eyes to my left, without moving my head, and I can see that he hasn’t moved, and he is still gazing straight ahead. The weight remains on my back for a few seconds, and then it lifts, leaving my shirt plastered to my back. He stands up and leaves.
#fiction | work-in-progress.

To read a post about the last time, and how she stopped it, after three years, go to: https://khuludkhamis.com/2017/04/28/the-last-time-three-versions/