Silent Voice

The cheery sun gently lifted my spirit, as I floated down the empty hallway to my bedroom.  The pale green, art-covered walls were a comforting reminder of my traveling father.  This week, he was staying in the King of Morocco's palace!  I slipped into my wobbling desk chair, and watched as my e-mail inbox sailed open to reveal a letter from an unknown sender.  Naively, I read the mysterious note.

Suddenly, the harsh sun was scalding hot, and my hijab, suffocating.  My desperate fingers clenched the carefully placed fabric, and tore it from my head.  I hated being different in ignorant America.  Why did love of my faith and culture make me a target for white supremacists' threatening letters?  Was it my fault?  Did I do something wrong to deserve this?  I've yearned for glamorous, white skin my entire life.  Now, I feel more contaminated than ever.  I should've informed someone of the e-mail.  Instead, I convinced myself it wouldn't happen again; nine year-old girls are not a group to fear.  And with this misconception, I continued through my day, pretending not to feel hurt.

I wish, that at this point, the perverse man had left me alone, but he didn't.  The notes morphed into death threats, and I had nowhere to turn.  The vomit-green and crudely decorated walls were a sign that I was all alone.  These merciless e-mails stole my voice, but only because I let them.  My idol Gandhiji famously said, "No one can hurt me without my permission."  Nevertheless, I allowed the letters to disturb me.

A few days later, the letters ceased to contaminate my computer.  Perhaps he, the tormentor, had decided I'd suffered enough.  Or maybe he'd caught on to the fact that he'd terrified me into silence, forever.  My large black eyes vacantly stared out my one lonely window, almost daring something to catch my gaze.  Wind flew in through the quietly opened porthole.  As it crept around the room, it grazed my unplayed violin's patient strings.  The melodious sound, combined with the music of the wind, pulled me from bed.  Perched on my windowsill was a circular stone, pure white and warm, like the full moon.

When darkness gracefully hugged the Earth, I noiselessly fled, stone in hand, to the deserted back roads near my house.  Moonlight softly whispered in my ear.  "You dropped your stone," a confident voice danced in my direction.  A tall, light-skinned young woman appeared as if from the clouds.  She introduced herself as Jina, a studying Shaman.  Jina, like most extroverts, had a lot to say.

I admired how effortlessly her plump lips openly formed what she wanted to convey.  "Poetry is such a creative and powerful genre of writing.  I love the musicality and water-like quality.  Do you admire any poet in particular?  Personally, I find Rumi's work to be especially inspirational."

Shyness smothered me, and I was unable to tell her, through my own rather thin lips, that I, too, read Rumi.  However, by early morning, Jina's charisma had managed to draw words from the depths of my consciousness.  A stifled voice timidly spilled my invisible struggle.  When our parting came, Jina pressed a blank journal into my hands and instructed me to write. 

My spidering fingers shape these letters to tell my story, and I know someone is listening.  I am Khashia, passive, but strong, just as my bapu, Gandhiji was.