Turn The Page: Chapter One, Girl On An Island

     “Whore! Wouldn’t wanna be you!” A hoarse voice slurred from the open window of a car idling at the intersection of Union st. and West Columbus Ave.    
     The “whore” in question stood as emotionless as a statue on the traffic median, leaning up against the rusted traffic light pole, holding a cardboard sign, which was creased down the middle, reading in bold red marker: “WILL SUCK AND FUCK FOR FOOD!”  
     The slurring man from the open window hissed at her again until the light turned green and he sped off through the intersection, leaving her in the black exhaust fumes.    
     She was a statue though, hardened by months of standing stoically for hours each day, begging for her life. The same median, the same expressionless, glassy thousand yard stare. Not at the cars lined along the median, but at her past life, every horrible chapter over the years.    
     Her name is Terry. And what she doesn’t see yet is that all those turning delicate pages of her past life have burned away. Smoldering ashes of her past that have feathered onto the creviced asphalt median beside her ragged boots. Only to blow away forever in the calmest breath of wind.    
     There are, however, pages of her diary she has in her keeping that have not burned by the fires of her past regrets. No, Terry keeps her locked diary out of sight from the world’s judgemental, burning eyes.    
     There are pages worth keeping from searing eyes, her words, her thoughts, life as a victim recorded with her pen; one of her only worldy possessions left. If she couldn’t write, and felt the urge to, she’d make mental notes on what to record later.    
     And the diary is kept snug between her breasts; close to her still beating heart. A heart that thunders on with longing. Longing for him, whoever he is, to come sweep her off her feet and take her to greener pastures. “A knight in shining armor,” Terry had written. These written words were not a cry for help, but prophetic. Terry is sure someday the black smoke will clear from all the rejection and not just fuck, but make love to the man that will hold her in a lengthy, warm sweaty embrace.    
     A gleaming Chevy pulled up and the tinted window rolled down and out of the aroma of thick marijuana smoke, a man’s face which had no attractive quality to it and a crooked smile says to her, “I got some McDonald’s burgers in the car with me, hop in!”    
     Then came the burning stream of a tear from the corner of her eye, which cooled as it followed the contors of her sunken cheek. Terry thought, serial killer. She unlocked eyes with his bloodshot ones and stepped along the median as the trafficked piled up alongside.  
     Broadcasting her cardboard sign as she made quick glances at each driver she pussyfooted passed. Some windows rolled up, others rolled down with hideous grins within the darkness, staring at her. One extended his hand out to her with an unlit cigarette pinched between his fingers. Terry accepted and smiled saying, “thanks.”    
     “A light?” The man asked.    
     “Yeah.”  
     Terry leaned to the man’s window and a spark from his lighter lit her eyes up to some kind of truth: this man is not so well-intended. Terry knew the type. After months of prostituting herself for peanuts, she knew this man was buttering up to her for an offer. “I got a whole fresh pack of cigs and we can go anywhere ya wanna eat, baby.” Terry instinctively drew back as her cigarette cherried and she answered, “honestly dude, I’m on my period, the cig will do.”    
     “Wait!” The man cried.    
     With trepidation, Terry rolled her eyes back to his. “Just a quick suck and swallow, and I’ll get you a motel room for the night, promise!”  
     Terry knew he was full of shit. She knew what a lie looks like in physical form by now. “No,” she said sternly. Then stepping forward further down the median, Terry hears that man scream, “fuckin’ slut – you’re gonna die in the streets like a bitch!”    
      Able to visualize the scorched pages of her past life, Terry kept her chin up and continued down the median until she reached the end curb. The end to this island which no beauty exists, no promises of love, no more a girl on an island. Tearing the cardboard sign in half and dumping it into a random, rusted out shopping carriage in the gutter of the road, Terry chose to turn this page and set it alight with her newfound hope.