Her colour was her crime by Layqa Fatima

The evening sun cast long shadows on the ground. The slanting rays of the setting sun gave a warm orange tint to the sky. She looked up at the blanket of stars that stretched to infinity and soon her eyes landed on the pale crescent moon shone like a silver claw in the night sky as millions of thoughts rushed inside her head. The moonlight partially illuminated her features; a chiselled jaw and cheekbones covered with various fresh cuts, dark vulnerable eyes filled with the hope of freedom and cream coloured hair complementing her ebony skin obscured with dirt and blood. Her thin tingling legs were too weak to hold her, and she lowered herself to the ground in a dishevelled heap as her grief poured out in a flood of uncontrollable tears. She mumbled incoherent things through her hands and chokes on her sobs, the sound of wailing and suffering echoed throughout the house. Shortly her pupils landed on a graceful giant, 2’11’’ in height with fair skin appeared in her blurry vision. He was her owner.

His steps paced towards her lifeless body lying on the floor helpless. The next moment she felt a stinging pain on her dark rosy cheeks which soon glimmered with blood under the moonlight followed by a hot wet fluid dribbling down her back as soon as the whip touched her rough skin adding to her scars all over the body because of burn and backslash. Every muscle in her body screamed at her to flee, but she remained frozen. Her body was covered with blood and she sat there praying for her freedom. As her suffering from the extreme torture ended, she looked at his direction to find a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “You feel pain?” he asked, studying her features; she did not understand what pain was at this point. Before her eyes felt heavy, her chest felt tight, her heartbeat decreased, she lost her muscular control, his last sentence ringed in her ears “You deserve to be a slave like your father because you are black and people like you are worthless creatures designed to lick our feet.” The next moment her eyes closed and her breathing stopped, followed by a long silence.

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Layqa Fatima of Grade XG (Gratitude) without fail contemplates that there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. She grew up writing accounts on various occasions that occurred in her life in her diary and continued to write narratives on diverse subjects on Watt pad. Writing helps her to arrange her emotions and her thoughts and it helps to provide perspective. When she writes it’s more than just her arranging words to make a sentence, it’s the universe converging within the pandemonium of her mind and turning it into something beautiful.

She not only likes to participate in creative writing competitions but she also unveils her emotions by taking part in art competitions. During the quarantine, she likes to draw her thoughts to get away from boredom.

Galvanized by the outrageous incident that occurred on 25 May 2020 which included police killings of George Floyd motivated her to write regarding racism. Further, the speech was given in the UN (United Nations) by her treasured artist “BTS” inspired her to raise her opinion on a recurrent but sensitive matter.

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Cover Photo by Good Free Photos on Unsplash