The wind blew gently through the trees. Some
pinecones and dried leaves fell softly to the ground and small animals ran to
their holes in the ground or in the trees. The weather was getting worse by the
minute and they could all feel it. All except for Samira. She was a rather
beautiful woman wearing a dress to big to walk around the wood. It had already
been ripped apart in some areas and it looked dirty. Some stains on it were
because of mud and water but others were clearly blood.
Samira didn’t stop when the wind got stronger.
She kept on walking through the forest, as she tried to make her dress fit
between the trees and not get ripped apart more. But that wasn’t possible. She
finally stopped when the forest got too dense and it was much darker in the
ground that in the upper area of the trees. She just stayed there, in the spot
she was, and waited. Sure enough, rain came some minutes after. The trees were
protection enough but she got very wet anyhow.
As the rain poured onto her, Samir began to cry,
finally breaking down. She fell to her knees, which was not something very easy
to do in that dress, and cried her eyes off. It was confusing to see the rain
on her face and also the tears. It was difficult to know what was what but
thanks to all that water she was able to finish crying fast and started
thinking about what to do next. She had come a long way, or so she thought, and
there was no way she would stop midway through the woods.
Realizing her dress couldn’t come with her,
she carefully removed it. It wasn’t easy as it opened in the back and there was
no one to help her with that. But after a couple of tries, the zipper lowered
enough for her to grab it and pull it down. Carefully she removed the top part
and then pulled the dress down her legs. She moved to a side and the dress
stood there, as if a ghost was still wearing it in that part of the woods.
She felt cold and sad to leave her gown behind
but life was much more important. So she kept on going. She had been barefoot
for a while, as the heels she had been wearing had gotten stood in thick mud
not very far from the edge of the forest. Samira decided to keep walking the
way she was walking, sure that it was the right direction in order to get away
from everything.
The trees grew closer in that area, which was
better for her because rain almost didn’t get to the floor. She was cold and
trembling, but at least she could clean some of the water of her body as she
walked over pieces of rotten wood, mud, puddles of water and tons of leaves that
autumn was taking away from the forest. She didn’t stop until it was very dark
and she realized she had to sleep at least a few hours.
She chose a place between two trees where
there was a huge natural bed made of leaves. She didn’t sleep much though,
because her brain kept telling her to keep moving, that she wasn’t safe yet and
that she just couldn’t get all relaxed and happy yet. Samira had to go on
through the forest and then arrived to the fields and, after that, the ocean.
At least that’s how she remembered it was. If she had mistaken her route, it
would be a major problem.
After only three hours of sleep, she kept on
moving through the trees, in the dark. Sometimes, she had to clean her tears
with her dirty hands because se remembered something she had left behind, like
her mother and all the beautiful memories of being who she was. Samira had left
much more than anyone else had ever left before and the decision had already
been taken. And she was sure she had made the right choice. There was no other
way around it.
Finally, she reached the other edged of the
forest and, as she had expected, there were fields after fields of different
kinds. It was the rural area that preceded the ocean, were most of the food was
grown in order for the whole country to have food in their plate. Or at least
that had been the idea behind it. Her mother had been the one who had convinced
her father to do something like that.
He always needed someone to convince him,
someone to tell him what he should do next. People around him were too kind to
tell him that he wasn’t good at his job, at all. But he had advisors and he had
Samira’s mother and that could be enough to be mildly successful as a ruler.
People liked him but did not love him and it was the same for the family as a
whole. However, that worked just fine for everyone. It was the barely minimum,
as someone had pointed our once.
Samira entered the field and hoped the people
that worked in them wouldn’t be around for some time still. Because if they saw
her, they would ask her why she was practically naked in their property. But
after some walking, she realized it was far too early for anyone to be around
there. Besides, it was an orange plantation and the fruits were just beginning
to grow, so no big masses of people would look after those.
She walked fast through the small trees until
she reached a house. The lights were off. But, most interestingly, the family
that lived inside had let a large assortment of clothing to dry out in the sun.
Maybe they had forgotten to put it inside or maybe it had been because of the
rain. Anyway, some of the things were not really wet so Samir stole a white
blouse and some pants.
The only problem was her hair. It wasn’t that
long but it was kind of obvious who she was. She found the solution only a
couple steps away, in the shape of some gardening scissors someone had left
inside a bucket. She grabbed the scissors, got her head a bit wet with water
that had fallen into the bucket and started cutting. It took her a long time to
get it even or what felt like even. They had no mirrors on the outside. The sun
was rising and when she heard a metallic sound from inside the house, she knew
she had to go.
Samira penetrated the fields again and soon
reached another plantation, a cornfield that looked ready to be picked. She had
to find a road or something before she got mistaken with a worker or accused of
being a thief. So she ran away in a different direction and ended up in a dirt
road that seemed to link every single field in the area. There, she could walk
down to the sea easier.
The day began and people were pouring from
every single place. Soon, there were carts passing through the dirt road and
people working hard on the fields. There were even children playing with mud
outside the houses. She thought it was something nice to see, that kind of
routine and simple life of the people that worked the land. She even thought
about staying but it was only for a second.
She had to make it to a boat and get fast away
from there. She had no choice. Samira had done something she really shouldn’t
have and it wasn’t something that got forgiven. Maybe her parents could, but
not her promised husband, He had been humiliated in public and soon everyone
would know how she ran away form her in the wedding dress, fleeing an arranged
wedding with one of the most powerful men in the country.
What she had done could have serious
implications for everyone, not only for her. After all, her marriage had to be
fulfilled in order to for m an alliance between different powers in the region:
between the wisdom and the strength, or that’s what her father said. But she
couldn’t bear to be forced into something like that, out of nowhere. She had
not known she was going to marry that man the morning of the wedding.
Now, Samira looked like a lost boy, asking for
work in one of the many ships that made it into the harbor, bringing fish and
other goods from other places of the world. Finally, a crab fishing crew
accepted her. Their captain happened to be a female, a woman that noticed right
away that Samira was not the boy she was faking to be. The girl sailed that
afternoon but her adventures were far from over.
