A Change is Born of Revolt

 

"What when you feel like a rebel, but dysmenorrhea tramples you down?" Ugh! Delivered, it said. She waited for her phone to chirp.
"...dysmenorrhea? : |"
"Don't be so behind for me to tell you what google is." What was the fruit, after all, of all this effort? It wasn't like Jace was going to arrive from Athens out of thin air. She just wished he did. These hopes can sufficiently calm me down. For least, maybe this thought would. She closed her eyes, pushing her emotions down as linn, waiting for her phone to chirp again.

She had fallen out of habit, all over again. Back then at 16, she would face menstrual discrimination by her own folks. She was then a rebel, too, but a supressed one. Youth and inexperience to blame? Not actually. 'A change is born of revolt' She believed, and knew that her words would be it. But at all instances, 'fellow humans', differently stanced in social hierarchy, held her tongue. Some said you ought to be overruled by whose given you eat; others pleaded much 'respect' for the elderly who laid down the rules. Jacelyn would always protest for her rights on her first day. But, naive enough, she'd kneel down to all wrong acts against her, in the name of deference and duty.
  Now, at 21, she knew better. She had trained four years, putting her defences up too strong for the vice to creep in. Little did she know of how they'd shrivel right when she saw her family again.
  Fifteen of sixty days' vacation in hometown, and her uterus could no longer hold it's contractions. Her mental health would have been well saved if she had decided to buy festive décor for her dorm than tickets to her hometown. Here, she was quarantined for her majestic flow of life-ichor. Usually, she was at their mercy to be given a portion of bed and a descent blanket. But, then again, social presence influences a fallacious mind more than lachrymal letters. A bleeding woman was sure to disgrace a congregation. So there she was, shifted to a different floor with flickering light on a winter evening. Isn't her fortune obvious?
  She reclined on her bed, her irises concealed from light. Heavenly vibrations crept in through the window, and her eyes opened wide. Her encephalon served the cradle for ambivalent thoughts -- part excitement; part surprise; part incredibility.
"But that can't trample my rebel!" Jace called from below her window. "Though, I do have something to trample it!" He conjured up a tub of ice cream from his backpack.
"But weren't you in Athens?" Jacelyn cried back. Her delight was ineffable!
"Incluso si estuviera en el centro del universo, hubiera venido a ti, cariño!" Certain neighbours and pedestrians stared at him. "Don't tell me that your business is so petty that eve-teasing Romeo seems important over it." He smiled at them.
  She rushed to the threshold to welcome him. "Incluso si...universo...cariño...what?" She laughed.
"Don't be so behind for me to tell you what google is." Jace mocked. "I'll get some spoons."
  Over the frozen watermelon cream, she poured her heart out to him, and couldn't help breaking down.
"It hurts, Jace, to be casted out of every place, and for what? For menstruating. If I bleed, I'm impure, and if I don't, I'm not good enough. And, if this blood I shed is impure, is dirty, then all humans living today, all saints, even Narayana who has incarnated as us numerous times, would have the same, impure, dirty blood running throughout themselves." She roared in pain and rage. "Take me from this place, Jace. I don't want to reside somewhere they don't respect women. I don't want to live here, with such people."
"Calm down, Jacelyn. We'll set everything straight. We'll change all of this." He paused. "Everything apart, but, take you? I'm no knight in shining armour, Jacelyn. In fact, you are, Señora Rebel. Running away from a crisis is very easy, Lyn, but staying poised there and hitting it off with a racquet of patience, faith and determination, is very difficult. Which road will you take?"
"The right one." She smiled, and twirled to face the door when someone knocked on it.
"Betwixt the ceremony?" Jace frowned.
"What do you expect after playing Romeo on the street, Jace? She grinned. " Deal with it, now. I'm going to sleep."
"But, Jacelyn, what --"
"Good Ninni, Jace!" She collapsed on the bed. He sighed and advanced slowly towards the door.