Singin' ain't so

   From her earliest youth, Jessica knew exactly who she wanted to be. She wanted to be a singer, to spend her days on top of a stage and just please millions of people with her voice and personality. She insisted so much to her parents that they finally accepted to pay for acting lessons and singing lessons. They didn’t really support her aside from the money aspect, so every single thing that happened afterwards was done only by that young idealist girl who wanted to eat the world.

 She spent every single weekend practicing in her singing school and at home. Her family didn’t really like it because her voice was not very good at the beginning. And even when she improved it, it was still very annoying for people that just wanted to relax at home after long days at school or at the office. Jessica sometimes left the house and sang outside, walking to the store or the park. In her mind, she had to keep using her voice until someone noticed her.

 In all the magazines, her favorite singers and stars told the stories of their discovery exactly in the same way: someone had seen them in a public space; sometimes it was the supermarket and others in an ice-cream parlor. The point was that they just saw them around and knew that they could be amazing artists. As she wanted to be a singer, she decided to sing in the park sometimes, hoping for people to stop by and just stay for a while, enchanted by her voice and talent.

 Jessica convinced her best friend Anna to play the guitar while she sang. Anna had been pressured by her parents from a young age, leading a very different life than the one her friend had. She had been told that by the age of ten she should know how to play at least three instruments, and one of those was the guitar. She accepted Jessica’s request after her friend said that it was the best way to be far from her mother, who was always telling her what to do, even in summer holidays.

 They started doing their small shows when they were around thirteen years old. They would sing five songs, chosen that same morning by the both of them. They had to do an act that would attract young people to the park but also adults that had connections to the artistic world in order for them to get noticed by a label. Anna was not as optimistic as Jessica, but she supported her nevertheless, mainly because it was such a fun time to have every so often. It didn’t happen every day, that would have been impossible, but they sat on the lawn of the park as often as they could.

Four years passed, very slowly for Jessica and very fast for Anna. They had only one more year of high school to go and then they would be sent to college. Their respective families had been saving for a long time and it would only be the right thing to do to keep studying and go on to live a life where they could be someone. But Jessica had already chosen who she wanted to be and nothing could ever change that. I her mind, she had a year to breakthrough and then, it would be undiscovered country.

 Anna was always checking universities on her laptop, even moments before their musical outgoings. She would tell all of the details to Jessica, who never really paid attention. She was too busy memorizing the lines of several songs or learning about her favorite artists. She had her room all decorated with several pictures of them as well as of other artists and bands that had come before. Her aim was to be in one of those posters in the future, inspiring other young girls to be the best they could be.

 However, life has a way of laughing at people’s dreams. One of those days, in which they sang on the park, Anna was late with her guitar, as her mother had decided to argue about the prospects of university. She wanted her daughter to study to be a chemist or a biologist. However, Anna wanted to learn something that required more creativity, more freedom. She had seen a lot of brochures about design schools, film schools and others like those. She wanted more than what she already had.

 As they fought with her mother, she forgot that time was passing and that Jessica was not the most patient human on Earth. Once before, Anna had been five minutes late and she had been received by a furious Jessica yelling at her a bunch of things about decency and manners that a person in the artistic world should have. She also said some hurtful things and it made Anna regret her decision to help her friend. Jessica apologized later but made her promised she was not going to be late ever again.

 But she was. Jessica had been waiting for a while. As winter was coming, the clouds and the sky turned darker sooner than before. It was the perfect moment for a criminal coming from outside of town to attack her right there, in the park. He covered her face and dragged her away from the lawn and into a wooded area, where he gagged her and raped her. A woman walking her dog found her the following day. Jessica had passed out the day prior and was still asleep when she was found. Not even the sound of more people around her and the paramedics woke her up.

  Jessica woke up in the hospital three days after having been found. Some of her bruises were already receding. Her mother was on the room when she woke up. It was obvious she had been crying for a long while. Her father came in later and he hugged her and cried, without saying a word. It was very strange but she didn’t even try to say anything. It wasn’t that she couldn’t talk; it just seemed wiser to just listen and wait for the right moment to say the right amount of words.

 That night, the doctor told her what had happened, her parents had left only minutes prior. She cried in silence as the man told her that the police had captured the man the day before on a road. He had been cornered by them, trying to take advantage of another girl. He was so surprised to see the police that apparently let the girl go and shot himself on the mouth. The police didn’t even have a moment to properly respond or to save his life in order to get the criminal to jail.

 Jessica nodded. She wasn’t really hearing the doctor. She was thinking about her career, about her possibilities now that she had been through something that horrible. She felt physically ill, disgusted and just tired. But something in her brain made her think that it wasn’t the end or something like that. She felt that there was more to her story than just that. She made sure the doctor knew she was going to get out of that hospital bed soon in order to achiever her goals, by any means necessary.

 Sure enough, she started writing songs the moment she was able to leave the hospital. Jessica closed her room door and did not come out of there for a whole week. Her mother would bring her food and she would often tear up but not say a word. Her father stood by the doorframe and watched her, absolutely stunned that she could be that active after what had happened. It didn’t seem right, but at the same time, Jessica seemed to be in her element writing in silence.

 Three songs came out of those writing sessions. She grabbed her video camera and recorded three different videos, which she uploaded to YouTube on the same day. She sang on them about what had happened, about how she felt and about what was going through her head.

 Her music was a success. Millions of viewers saw the videos and shared them in less than a week. Soon enough, a recording label contacted her and an album was planned to be released within the year. And Anna… She never saw her again. She couldn’t forgive her.

Of victims and heroes

Far be it from me to mistreat a person that has gone through something hard. But hey, that woman is a fucking bitch. And no, I'm not saying she "was looking for it" or that "she deserved it". No, I'm just saying she's a bitch. And here's why.

First of all, the woman is not a victim. That fucking simple. She was just followed by a guy at night and then the guy disappeared. For all we know, it might have been a drunk guy or someone really stoned. Nothing really happened after that. Well, not besides her boyfriend going crazy and slapping her, once, in her apartment.

Yeah, I think I have to explain that. Margie, our "victim" and "hero" had a boyfriend. They had been together for at least three years and, naturally, they were thinking of getting married. Marge has always been kind of attractive (not to me, but whatever) and she certainly loved to party. Friends of mine knew for a fact that the woman couldn't stop herself from going out at least two days on a week and drink and dance and so on, for hours and hours.

Ok, that doesn't really make anyone a "bad person". But may I remind you that she didn't only had a few too many drinks, the girl was kinda loose and had more guys in a year than an army barracks. The girl was a bit too "free" and the worst was that her boyfriends, a fairly nice guy, had no idea she had been spending some much of her time with others.

Well, he finally realized it, about a week before they got married, when everything had already been bought, the venue was decided, the flowers chosen and the dress was resting on a hanger wearing to be worn.
He went to her house to drop the seating arrangements and found her going at it with a guy from her pilates class. So the marriage was cancelled but not before the guy beat the hell out of the lover of his bride to be (or not to be) and slapped her in the obvious rage.

So, no. She is not a victim in that sense. It wasn't gender violence or anything like that. It was a man deep in love hurt by a woman he should have never trusted. That was it.

Now, for seconds, let's talk about that guy that followed her. Working in the organization to defend the rights of women and others, I was there when her case was exposed and used in the media as one more act of harassment and violence against women and so on.

Of course, I was interested in knowing what had really happened. It was around that time when I decided to leave the organization, as I noticed they wanted to use anything to make their demands valid. They had greatly exaggerated what had happened with her boyfriend. Mutual friends told me he had to leave the country, as people began to harass him.

So I left that place but kept asking here and there about what had happened with the guy that followed her. As it turns out, it wasn't harassment, not a crazy stalker obsessed with the woman, as it had been said on the news and in numerous reports. Nothing close to that.

Albert Foch was around thirty years of age and had been consuming heroine and other drugs for around ten of those years. His body was not that strong and the drugs help him go through the cold nights, as food was pricier and less satisfying.

The night of the events, Albert had not consumed any drugs for some hours and was really hungry. He really wanted something hot, chocolate or coffee. He hadn't tasted any of those for quite some time and no drug could replace that need right now. He was walking through a neighborhood, shaking from the cold when he saw a young woman, that happened to be Margie. She had stepped out of a bus and dropped a wallet when she got down from it.

Albert waited for a moment and then went closer to grab the wallet. He checked it out and saw it had money and papers. So what he did was taking one of the bills, to buy some food, and decided to follow to woman to give the wallet to her. Maybe if she received it, she would give more money to him. So he followed her.

He did it for several streets and even yelled at her for the woman to stop but nothing worked. She just walked faster and yelled "Don't rob me, I have nothing". The man, exhausted from running after a crazy woman, yelled back: "You have nothing. I have your wallet". And maybe that was misinterpreted because she ran even faster and finally entered a building where a security guard warned him not to go near and threaten with calling the police. Albert explained to him that the woman had dropped her wallet and gave it to the guard. He left immediately and finally had a decent dinner, for once in many months.

All of this, I heard it from various sources, mainly the security guard but also, after scouting the neighborhood, I found Albert himself who told me the whole story and said he was actually thankful that he had the opportunity to grab the bill. I asked him why he didn't take it all and he answered he wasn't a thief and only took what he needed. He told me all when I invited him to have something to eat and he was grateful and, of course, surprised when he heard what she had said about what happened that night.

 - Bitches be crazy.

Well, this time Albert was absolutely right. Marge had judged a little bit too fast and never gave him a second chance.

Anyhow, she had one last surprise. She filed a lawsuit against her boss, because he had apparently harassed her in the office and cited as an accomplice a women that worked as a secretary in the office. As she announced a book in which she would tell her "courageous story", I decided to investigate this last event in her life.

I worked in an NGO called Human Rights for All and I had even more resources so it wasn't difficult to find out the man that had been Marge's boss, now unemployed, had never really come on to her. The truth was he was in love with the secretary she accused as an accomplice. And Marge was jealous of her and that was said by several of their coworkers. Apparently Marge wanted the boss to pay attention to her to get a raise but he only had eyes for the secretary, who also happened to be a skilled woman, dedicated to her work. Marge envied her for that. She considered her a "smart-ass", as many said she had called her.

So that was their story.

Well, I know there two sides to every story and the truth is always a mix of both. But Marge's life has not been an exemplary one and she has proven in numerous times, many more than the ones I tell here, that she is a prejudiced human being, only capable to achieve her goals by scheming and telling lies even to the people that decide to love her.

Even if it isn't all like that, I personally don't think that woman can be called a "hero" and, not at all, "a victim". She has used that status to make people feel bad for her and somehow that has made her superior to others, as if that made her a better person, which she actually thinks she is having released two books and becoming a model and spokesperson.

But that's our world, where real victims and heroes are ignored in favor of the fabricated dreams of others.