Hurt Me Daddy, for I Have Blogged

Sometimes one of the younger aunts, Mala, would secretly bring her better food. "Do not tell, idiot child. Then I will be marime. I am sorry." Irina was grateful. The tribe also d id not care if she went to bed with gadje men for money. "They are gadje and you are mostly too. Stay away from our tents." But they would speak of it only once or twice, and never directly. They needed to pretend it didn’t happen. In one mining town it happened, because she was curious to taste liquor. It was completely secret, away from the tents of her workplace. She had never tasted liquor. He said he had a sweet homebrew made of wildflowers.

And so she emerged from the damp dust of Night Town: Irina of the Romany. Christian name to pass, forgotten tribe. She was not dark like the rest of them because her first tribe had abandoned her. Though some suspected she was a spy from the Kalderasha and as a toddler told to act a fool. Sometimes old women who forgot called her Yana because there was always a cousin by that name. She did not re member her secret name from the other tribe, and they would not bestow her one. "You clean the garbage-pile when you are not dancing or telling fortunes. It is ok if you dance. You are more rakli than not. Stupid woman. We cannot marry you and you are too old to bear children. You are dumb like an unmarried girl but in a woman's body. Useless. Why did we help you? Based on a lie. Keep dancing for the gadjo men. You will sleep alone and we will kill you if you touch our husbands."

I awoke at 0400 hours. See, I like to say it like military time. I was a foreigner. My face and body felt stuffed with cotton. "Arghawals and spelnfurkefukufs." The doctor was speaking gibberish. It was silly; I did not want to live. "You will be on suicide watch for all eternity" they said. Did you know that the medications they gave me made me want to attempt again? I guess they lied and laughed. Now I stagger inside the cell of my parental home. Parietal home. I'm not the man she knew. Their attempts to save me were noble. I was not where I once was. I am going to try to do that thing again. I will not say the words. I'll be leaving now. Into dusky, deep-night sleep. Give my regards to hot nights and nosy neighbors. I am in a box. I am walled, and they won't recover spirit.

She was an organ harvester of Night Town. She carried a scalpel constantly and often her goggles would become spattered with blood. It was imperative that she work quickly before the other Harvesters got to the body. Storage was a challenge. Sometimes she took extra for herself. Those in the Will would know where everything was when the time came. She never took their blood. In fact, it was just a mess and awful to get through. That was left for the Feeders. Good thing she didn't have to inhale the scent of internal organs. That is what her portable Engine of Joy was for. Occasionally, her ribs would feel like they were cracking. 'Pray that I can build a body out of this,' she said sometimes to the quiet or absorbed Night Town Peons. 'Otherwise, they will kill me.' They had no reason to care, though they did more than other harvesters would. Sometimes they laughed softly at her. Sometimes an old Peon would crease his brow in pity and then walk quickly by. It was a...