PLEASE READ: Hello everyone. I just wanted you to know that this is not a Les Mis fic, persay, for it is not about any specific characters from Les Miserables, but it is for an Essay contest that I entered. It is a ten part short story inspired by the finale from Les Miserables, which, in my opinion is the most beautiful scene and song that I have ever seen and heard. One of the chapters—the first one I wrote actually—you'll see is very similar to a certain character in Les Mis, and I'm sure you will make the connection. I would love reviews and comments that you have, and would particularly appreciate it if anyone had any constructive criticism to help me become a better writer. I trust you all, but I must ask that you please don't copy or repost my story, for the Essay contest is not yet over, and I don't want this to be disqualified. Thank you all for reading my story.
Just Another Day—Brazil, 2005
This way please, Mister, she whispered, encircling the man's sausage fingers in her delicate ones. Tugging him down the stairs, she led him to a desolate room where only a bed bridged the gap between utter emptiness. The bare room only perpetuated the loneliness inside her soul. The air itself tasted of misery, the countless girls before her left their spirits imprinted in the very walls that stifled any dreams they had dared to dream. Suppressing a wracking cough, she pulled him to the bed, sitting herself down upon the unwashed sheets. He followed suit.
It was over in an hour. That was the program he had purchased. He had paid her pimp, Adanne, and left her the moment his buttons were done. Just another day. She slipped her bikini top back over her flat chest and the miniskirt up the toothpicks masquerading as legs, and left the room. Just another day. Her sides heaved as the coughs gripped her body. She battled for breath, a lone swimmer trapped in a rip tide, fighting for life, and yet swept further and further away from the shore with each second until finally succumbing to the implacable waves, sinking below the surface, never to be seen again. Just another day.
Desperate for the only remedy she knew, the girl collected her bag—pink with a picture of a Barbie doll on the front—from the coatroom where she had hastily stowed it, and retreated to the boiling streets of the red light zone where she spent her days. Adanne, she knew, would be in the nearest bar, waiting with her money. So off she sped, eager to collect her sums for the night.
There had been three one-hour programs and one for half an hour. Having dropped out of school four years ago when her mother forced her to pay rent, her math was not good, but she did know enough to add her income. She should have earned one hundred reals for the night, but fifteen of them would go to Adanne. With the prospect of eighty-five BRLs in mind, the girl thought of the hours she could have on high from the crack she would buy with her money. In her excitement, she was once more submerged in a tidal wave of coughs. But there was no lifeguard to save her from the suffocating surf. Just another day.
Sinking to the ground, she allowed the world to wash over her as the disease engulfed her. Her hand, covering her gasping mouth, was slick with blood. Just another day. But this day the coughing did not subside. The blood continued to flow from her mouth, and when that was not enough, poured from every other crevice her body had to offer.
Tuberculosis had claimed her as his own. He fused his greedy fingers to her lungs, washing his plague through her small body. At eleven years old, she met the master of her disease, greeting him as an old friend. As Death converged upon her, gathering the child in his clutches, she saw hands extending towards her, reaching to welcome her into their ranks. Her head spun, her chest ached, her throat burned, her vision blackened, and with barely a ripple, Erica Dias faded from the Earth.
While this is a fictitious piece, all of the issues are real, and must be changed. The first way to do that is by spreading awareness. So please, go forth, breathe a little goodness into the world, and always remember that, as Aesop once said, "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." Thank you for reading.
-Lia