Misgivings

My senior year of high school, I had a friend named Nick. We all knew Nick. He was funny, outgoing, athletic, and one of the warmest people you’ll ever meet.

My sophomore year at WWU, he was attending a community college in his hometown, and I was working in Cambodia. That winter, he drove on to black ice, and fell into a coma.

I got sent chain emails with updates, prayer chains that extended entirely throughout the American Adventist community, or possibly beyond. Nobody thought he would survive, but he did.

When the accident occurred, I hadn’t seen Nick in 2 years. 2 years after his accident, I saw him hobbling up the stairs, his father holding him beneath his armpits, doing his best to steady those quivering steps.

There and then, I cried.

He spoke for vespers, and afterwards, I approached him, and he smiled at me, the same smile as always. I was relieved. I was scared he wouldn't have remembered me, because he suffered from brain damage in his accident. He spoke deeper, and slower. "Trina," he said, "I haven't seen you in years. It's like you fell off the face of the earth. Where have you been?"

For argumentation class, I am writing a paper on why prostitution should not be legalized. I got a few books from the Library, even went to Whitman, and was overwhelmed with the amount of sources I had to choose from.

Reading them made me feel sick to my stomach.

Reducing any woman to a "cunt" makes my heart hurt.

This world is a dark place.

I think often about the day I went to Toul Sleng prison in Cambodia, a historical museum that once was used to store prisoners, tortured by the KR regime. Near the gate, a beggar took off his hat, and extended it towards me, asking silently for me to spare a bit of money. His face looked as though it had been melted with acid, he was missing an arm, and walked with a severe limp. I looked away so he wouldn’t see me cringe. It wasn’t at him, as much as everything else. He looked like one of those comic book villains, who lives underground, seething and scheming in the sewage tunnels. But this isn’t a summer blockbuster movie, and in the end, nobody applauds when he dies. Instead, he’ll be lucky if anybody even knows.