Short Story: Souls of the Slum

Souls of the Slum

Teesha lives in the slums of Somalia. It has been 8 days since she has found any food. Teesha is only seven years old and already on her own in a world which seems turned against her. Teesha lost her mother when she was five years old. Her mother had gotten sick from a disease that Teesha did not know what was called. All she knew was many others around were victims of it, and each person who this awful disease captured died shortly. Teesha’s father is a man she has never met, nor does she have a desire to meet him. Men to her are cruel and do not treat her or any other women in the slum as if they are people, just possessions or things to throw around.  Sometimes she catches herself dreaming of a world where women are respected; where they can earn food by other ways then stealing or letting men violate their bodies. Sometimes Teesha dreams of the place she has heard of called America. Teesha would love nothing more than to live in America where she has heard each person has their own mansion and money grows from the ground and off the tops of the trees. She dreams of a place where there are good people who stop crime from happening. Who prevent her and the other girls from being trapped by evil men. She dreams of a place where the word father means something, and where the word mother is not a word that brings an awful guilty pain to her stomach. Teesha cannot find food. She has been rummaging through trash and destroyed plastic. She has even tried begging on the streets for the day. Yet so many children beg Teesha is unseen and ignored. The children are not pitied.

Teesha is haunted by the death of her mother. When her mother was dying Teesha tried to convince her mother to eat the food she had found for the day. Her mother always refused, forcing Teesha to eat it. Teesha feels as if she ate her mother’s strength, maybe if she had made her mother eat the food that she so selfishly desired and devoured maybe her mother would have gotten well again. Maybe her mother wouldn’t have died in her place. Teesha hates hunger. It is a feeling she has known her whole life. It makes her angry. It makes her do anything for something to eat, even things she knows aren’t right. Like letting her mother die, or stealing from other children who still have families left to care for. She hates those children; the ones that still have mothers. She does not want to hate them but she cannot stop herself. Teesha is so hungry she is past the point of noticing the wrenching pain her stomach is screaming at her body. No longer does she feel that pain, just a constant fatigue. She wants to lie down and sleep, but she knows she must keep searching for food.  After what feels like days but is only hours of searching she finally gives up. She cannot fight the exhaustion. Teesha collapses onto a pile of waste. Her discouraged soul is so much stronger then her body usually. Yet today it was defeated.