The fundamentalist

I pull my hair into two tight plaits twist the round and pin them to the back of my head. I wish I had short hair but it is a sin to cut it. I must let it grow, cascade down the stairs and into the orchard below me. One day when I am free I'll cut it all off and let it go in the breeze I'll let our father see it I don't care for it as long as I'm free.

"Charlotte" my mother yells. I pull myself off my mattress, I share it with my two other sisters I pull of my night gown and begin to change, I hate all of my clothes there all pink, purple or green I despise all those colours. I've never been beyond the hills in the distance, I never been anywhere apart from town and church.
"Charlotte" and the sky, one day I'll run so far I'll reach the deep blue sky
"Charlotte" I shut my window briskly sometimes I don't think properly what if someone saw me thats a sin, mind you everything I do is a sin well thats what mother says at-least
"Charlotte" the door handles rattle I could make a run for it but it would just make it worse in the end. "Charlotte you un-godly child you will burn in the hell fire if you do not obey me even the lord our God commanded you hellish child" my head hurts so does my back I think she used the wooden spoon this time. "go" I walk down the bleak stairs I left my coat in the room but I don't want to go back there. Ever since Warren james was sent beyond the hills things have been tense for all of us Mother says if we pray he will come back to us. I don't want him to come back he said he was the closest to God so we must treat him so, on our desks sit printed pictures of him- smiling I know what he really did - who he really was so I don't know why he's smiling that awful look on his face I hate him but I can't for he is our father.

Once I was to run to the hills with my older brother Thom we had a plan we were to run in the night but he lost himself as my mother put it and I've never seen him since sometimes in our community people go missing and never come back they are simply forgotten lost in time, all evidence any trace is burnt.  I envy the birds anything that is brave enough to run to the hills to taste the breeze. There has to be something better than this. Surely the men from the hills came from somewhere there simply can be no where. I long to cut my hair to watch it dance in the wind to run barefooted in the grass scream at the top of my lungs without punishment but instead I sit at my school desk preying always for forgiveness. The lords prayer starts but I don't join in. How can they're be a God, who is real. Why have we never seen him, I don't understand. The bells ring and I walk out the door. It's only break but I can't stop there I have no control, all I need to know is whats beyond here what lies on the other side. "charlotte" someone yells I run my boots scrape the floor and I undo my hair it flow in the wind, moving this way and that I've never let it out in the open. It feels nice different, new. I like change not so much tradition. The grass gets thicker, my hair gets wilder and suddenly I reach the top of the hill, a wooden fence is the only thing that separates me from knowing. My dress rips my hair tatters my anticipation rises. Then I see it, what has been hidden from me my whole life, a whole different world that I didn't know even existed, I'm so far away but closer than I've ever been I need to know I have to understand what God really is. "Charlotte!" I see my Aunt screaming at me from over the fence I have to go now. I'll be burnt, forgotten, lost but I'll be free.

There is more for me out there I'm sure of it there is more than just being submissive and loving. Behind the hills lies my old life, beyond my new.