Within few seconds, our positions change places. I am not the one walking in front but the bullies stand in front, blocking my passage. For a few breaths that I hold, the sturdily built dudes surround me like vultures circling their prey. I am left with no space to breathe and even as my heart jumps at an annoying speed I am worried that one of the boys might hear the panic in it. They will just find another reason to tease me.
“Sup, babe?” One of them inquires. I stay focused on the road, staring at its mud brown skin. A little breeze picks up and shuffles my hair, as though encouraging me but I already know that I am doomed.
“Whatcha ya eatin’,” asks another one as he pulls the brown bag from my hand. I don’t want to give it but I know there is nothing that I can do to protest such an action. My throat is a hoarse hallway, no voice sits as a guest, rather it has fled like it was never even there.
I hear them opening the bag and one of them pulling out a tart and noisily munching it down. Without looking up, I am aware that there are three of them who are heavily built and one of them is a slightly toward the lanky side but his disproportionate set of broad shoulders is a good deception to his thin waist. All of them proudly carry a buzz cut with ears poking out of their rightful places. Something that is distinct about their fading shadows on the ground.
“C’mon, let’s take ya home, little girl.” The leader of their pack suggests. By now my lips are chapped and completely dry. I am sure that if I stay longer, I might faint. But before I make a decision or move a muscle, one of the other guys says, “we can have some fun with the little girl. Or precisely, the girl trapped in a guy’s body.”
They laugh, one of them snorts. They start with their usual name calling. I try to tune out the names but gradually, the group starts to inch closer to me. I feel my legs turn to noodles and I know that I can never really rely on those sticks of bones; they’d never carry me, the prey, home.
The brown bag of tarts falls at a distance. My head screams with utter disgust that it feels for me. Truly, however, I feel that it is the brain that is weak. Or maybe it’s the body. Regardless of who holds the reigns of the my futile self, I am the one suffering. Sweat breaks on my forehead as I figure if I can make a run for my life. But with my legs that seems impossible.
I know that their next steps are going to cost me heavily but I don’t think that my molten muscles could do any good to me. One of them holds my chin, the lanky one, I am sure and forces me to look up. My face obeys but my eyes still try to find something interesting to watch on the ground. “C’mon be a man!” one of the boys complains.
But a boy is one thing that I never was. In fact, I am what they say next, almost in a unison, “Coward!”
