The Bad Girl

The inhabitants of the small town gasped in horror. The authorities had found her. What was going on in the world these days? Was any place safe ever?


In the spot light a woman. Not just arrested for prostitution, but also involved in a robbery that ended in the murder of an innocent man that people in town loved.

From a distance I could see the blood in her hands, also some blood stains in her naked legs. One person whispered to another next to me that she had flesh under her fingernails…how would they know? Eeewww

The group of people watching the arrest was growing, and growing in anger too. Oh my God I wasn’t ready to see anybody being lynched…though she deserved maybe…so they started calling her names, furiously, first was whore, hoe, then monster then other names I rather not repeat. Maybe I should just go home to my family.

She didn’t seem remorseful at all. On the contrary. Trying to fight off the cops she had a “hammer” in her hand. As they brutally pried it away from her, it’s edge sliced her hand open and blood poured out. As the handcuffs were placed, from the other hand a bunch of sharp rocks fell out. Oh my God what a misery, what could she even do with those?

Probably accustomed to fight all her life, she was breathing hard and jolted when an older man approached and placed his arm over her shoulders. I could see that she meant to walk away but didn’t. When they locked eyes, she let out one loud deep sound, she lowered her face and silently cried. No longer defiant. Broken.

The older gentleman…was he her dad? Nah. Impossible. Dressed in farmer jeans, with a clean pressed white shirt, a worn pair of sneakers completed his simple outfit. He said something to the cops, no one could hear. In a second some jingling keys opened her cuffs. He took a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and held to her slashed hand, but he was out of time. In another second the cops pulled his arms behind his back, and cuffed him….The crowd gasped again! WHAT?!?! Oh hell no! Obviously they took this poor foolish peasant, just a simple farmer in her place…..this was ridiculous.

The crowd started to leave, they had enough. The cop cars 3 or 4 were turning around with the sirens and lights blasting through the dark night approaching fast. I was hoping to see her face…as some of the crowd left and the cars turned I started to walk towards her. She was slowly raising from the ground, picking up some things that had fallen from her bag, perhaps on her struggle with the cops.

Suddenly we were almost face to face. From a small distance I noticed that she stank of alcohol and some musty tobacco smell, her hair was sweaty and messy, her face aged and tired. Standing there battered and beaten, used and abused, hated and hateful was I. I was looking straight at my own eyes. I was the one! She smiled a strange smile and vanished into the night. I wept as I looked down and saw the blood in my hands, the hammer near my boots and the rocks on the ground. I was her, she was Me!