Talking With Cult Girl

She was covered from head to toe in a thick wool garment that completely hid her form, and her head was wrapped so tightly in the same material that it gave me a headache just looking at her. She was selling her jewellery in the market when I came upon her; she was wiping the beads of sweat away with one hand while shading her eyes with the other. She didn’t notice me at first but I knew her at a glance. She is called Cult Girl, and she is well known to the women at Shebytches. We have had several run-ins with her and each time we have left feeling like our hearts were breaking for her, and this time was no different.

The word ‘I’ does not exist in Cult Girl’s vocabulary. When people ask her how she is she replies ‘we are well’, and when I asked her if she was going to be in the market again the following week, she replied ‘if God wills it.’ There is no way to describe the feeling of isolation that she exudes and yet she is never left alone, she is always in the company of an older man or woman dressed exactly like her. The sadness in her eyes is enough to make even the most hard-hearted person feel for her; she has no way of escaping and she knows it. Cult Girl is just that: a girl. She can’t be any older than twenty and yet she looks as though she’s lived an entire life in those twenty years; she is old but certainly not wise.

I can’t explain what it is about her that makes me so angry, but every time someone mentions her name or sees her I get so irate that I feel like I want to vomit. Perhaps my anger stems from the fact that I can’t stand seeing women subjugated like that, having their voices taken from them, hiding their bodies in shame, and bowing to God in fear instead of love; I have never been able to understand what would make a woman choose this kind of religion, this kind of non- life. It is for this reason that I am so glad to have been brought up in a house where I was free to experiment with my beliefs, where I was told on a regular basis that I must question everything and not take anything at face value, and where religious opinions were shared openly. I learned at an early age that any religion that oppresses the human spirit is not a religion but a cult, and Cult Girl has no spirit left in her at all.

Where did she come from? Where are her parents? Was she born into it? Has she ever tried to leave it? Has she ever tried to ask for help? These were the questions that were running through my head as I stood and stared at her. I could tell that I was making her uncomfortable because she kept glancing at the two other women that were guarding her to make sure she wasn’t committing any sins by talking to me. I wanted to say so many things to her but I felt like I was putting her in danger just by standing there; the other women/vultures looked at me like I was a wolf trying to take their lamb and they weren’t going to stand for it.

So I left. I could feel her eyes on me as I walked away but I willed myself not to look back; I knew if I looked back I would just get sucked in again, but the feeling of anger has remained with me. I am so angry that she has allowed this abuse to continue, that she has lost her backbone, and that she has accepted her role as a victim. I am angry at the so-called adults around her that continue to manipulate and use her whenever they like, and I am angry that she has spent her life believing in a God that would have her live like that.

I suppose I should be grateful that the word ‘I’ exists for me and that I am able to believe in whatever God I want, but it doesn’t stop me from thinking that she is out there and that she will never know what it feels like to have a thought of her own. But perhaps she does know. Perhaps she knows all of this and has no idea how to get out or who to turn to. Perhaps she knows all to well the looks people like me give her and perhaps she’s given up believing her life is her own… and that is the saddest thought of all.

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