Post by riza on Aug 13, 2007 16:07:51 GMT -5
Riza sank back onto the simple, straw-mattress, staring blankly up at the sunken roof above her. Her stomach growled at her but she refused to eat anything, knowing that her stores were getting low and she needed to ration herself for the next while until the pub became more active and she received more tips. Her regular pay was low and she depended on tips mainly to get herself by. Luckily there was going to be a Gather soon enough in the area and hopefully that would attract more attention to the little, dingy pub she had made her lifestyle out of.
Today had been a pleasantly warm and bright day, the one in which you would spend hours just laying out on the grass staring up at the cotton-ball clouds rolling across the sky and dream of better days to come. However, Riza was kept indoors serving the few local drunkards that seemed to wile away their lives in that pub. They always conversed about the same topics, drank the same alcohol, arm-wrestled each other even though they knew who would win again and again, and moaned and wept together about their wives leaving them, dead or frustrated with their apathetic husbands that they left them to save their souls.
Obediantly Riza would tolerate their abusive comments about her every time she came around to give them their drinks or wipe the tables. At first when she went there she had stood up for herself, confronting the dirty customers and putting them in their places, but there had been one too many close calls that her boss had warned her that if she lost them any more business she would lose her position and be sent out to fend for herself, something Riza couldn't afford to have happen so she just quit trying to protect herself and let the men goggle at her, talk their dreadful talk, and stalk her after hours.
Riza had become that simple emotionless shell, not looking directly at people's faces anymore, afraid and vulnerable, the light inside of her flickering fragilely, able to be put out with barely a breathe of a whisper in it's direction. She worked honestly and hard, earning the few marks she could, and surviving with few things other than the bare essentials to keep her going. She was growing tired... She wished that tonight would be the night, perhaps, when her eyes would close tight and she would sleep long at last, only opening them when the world was warm again and willing to embrace her damaged soul.
Today had been a pleasantly warm and bright day, the one in which you would spend hours just laying out on the grass staring up at the cotton-ball clouds rolling across the sky and dream of better days to come. However, Riza was kept indoors serving the few local drunkards that seemed to wile away their lives in that pub. They always conversed about the same topics, drank the same alcohol, arm-wrestled each other even though they knew who would win again and again, and moaned and wept together about their wives leaving them, dead or frustrated with their apathetic husbands that they left them to save their souls.
Obediantly Riza would tolerate their abusive comments about her every time she came around to give them their drinks or wipe the tables. At first when she went there she had stood up for herself, confronting the dirty customers and putting them in their places, but there had been one too many close calls that her boss had warned her that if she lost them any more business she would lose her position and be sent out to fend for herself, something Riza couldn't afford to have happen so she just quit trying to protect herself and let the men goggle at her, talk their dreadful talk, and stalk her after hours.
Riza had become that simple emotionless shell, not looking directly at people's faces anymore, afraid and vulnerable, the light inside of her flickering fragilely, able to be put out with barely a breathe of a whisper in it's direction. She worked honestly and hard, earning the few marks she could, and surviving with few things other than the bare essentials to keep her going. She was growing tired... She wished that tonight would be the night, perhaps, when her eyes would close tight and she would sleep long at last, only opening them when the world was warm again and willing to embrace her damaged soul.