In eighth grade we were asked to look up the definition of a word. I was given 'Rebellion'.
It surprised me to find that there were two definitions, the first stating that rebellion was towards the government and involved being armed, and to me, dangerous. The second definition however was that it meant resisting control, convention or authority without weapons or, how I thought of it, danger. My father would often call me out on my actions stating, "a case of teenage rebellion" and so after reading the definition I would laugh whenever he used this phrase, imagining my father as a leader of a country and me, with a gun slung over my shoulder and my face covered in paint, as a rebel, fighting to be allowed to stay out an extra hour past curfew on a Saturday night. I never really imagined that, more often than not, the two definitions were often mixed together and someone could apply to not only one, but both.
The first time that I began to understand rebellion was when I was ten.
Our government had been failing for many years, decomposing like waste that poisoned the land it seeped into. Jobs were being lost, pay checks being cut, and more and more people were becoming ill and dying due to no support from anyone around us. My father was in the government that tried to hold our world together. He'd looked out for our family for a long time but his dedication to the powers he had was the cause of my mother's demise.
My mother died when I was ten at the hands of rebels, right in front of my eyes.
I still do not know if they meant to hurt her, or if it was my father that they had intended to kill but I would never have that question answered because I was never to come into contact with rebels again. That was my father's promise. He intended to keep it, but I did not.
When I was thirteen, unknowing to my father, I decided to sneak out of the large walls that kept me prisoner in the safety of its confinements. I had not seen the world past this brick wall since my mother had died and the people up roared against the leaders that were supposed to looks after them. In my young age I did not blame my father for the death of my mother, I was told that the rebels were vicious and bloodthirsty, like trained hunting dogs, after anyone connected to the government.
That meant me.
When I discovered the hole in the wall on that day, I did not step a foot past the brick that I peered through, but as the years passed I leaned further forward and went further through the wall until, at the age of fifteen, I touched the other side and ventured into the land that I was told was rotting and devouring anything good left in it.
As the months passed and I got closer and closer to the town that was forbidden to me, I prepared myself for the horrors that I would see. I put an invisible shield on my eyes to protect me from the horrid images, and I put a filter around my ears to block out the sound of death and screams of agony, that is why when I arrived there, at the age of sixteen, an old brown cloak around me, I thought I was deaf and blind.
I did not see decomposing flesh that smelt of nightmares.
I did not witness violent murders in front of me that burned into the back of my mind and turned me crazy.
I did not see monsters of darkness and evil devouring light.
I saw people.
I saw light in the eyes of small children who ran around in the dirt playing with any small object they could find.
I saw loving embraces between family as they said goodbye or hello to people they cared for.
I saw good, I did not see evil.
When I was seventeen and I made my way through the village that bustled with life, like I did most weeks, I witnessed a wedding.
Inside the walls where I was meant to remain, weddings no longer existed, we were told they used too many resources and were pointless and greedy. We were told that they were not needed.
But as I stood and watched a man and woman share a kiss, surrounded by loved ones and most likely people they didn't even know due to the amount of people present, I knew that they were needed. Just like the flowers wrapped in lace being held by the girls or the lights strung up on the trees around them - they were needed. Light and hope was needed.
As I watched the ceremony my eyes drifted to the man standing beside the groom, I presumed he was the best man. He could have been any age as I had learnt, while walking through the streets, that the dirt and hard living conditions could make a middle aged man look like he was on deaths row, or even a boy a man.
I gazed at him, entranced by his beauty, not one of make up and perfect skin, of gleaming hair and a fresh suit, much like what was expected inside the walls, but of rugged and hard and rough and calloused, much like the street I was standing on.
He must of felt my gaze, or maybe it was fate, but his eyes connected with mine and my heart froze in my chest and all at once I wanted to throw myself into the light but also cower away inside the hood of my cloak. He just looked happy, not afraid or angry or stressed or confused, but happy. I stood there for what could of been minutes or hours, I did not know but as the crowd erupted into cheers I was jolted back to life, just in time to realise that the man had started towards me through the crowd and unlike him I was not happy for I could see something he could not.
Danger.
I ran back to the walls which I knew too well to be afraid of.
On the day of my eighteenth birthday my father proved that it was indeed the walls which I had been confined to that I should be afraid of. He approached with such boldness that I did not except what he said to come out of his mouth, much less what he was demanding me to do. I argued with him and that is when he struck me across my cheek, right on my sharp cheekbone that jutted out below my blonde hair. He did not look remorseful, only shocked, and that is why I ran. Not due to the action or whom it was but because there was no sign of him being sorry, there was no sign if him not agreeing to hurt me, and so I went straight to where I felt safe - past the wall without the protection of my cloak.
To say I was careless was an understatement, without my cloak around me to blend in I stuck out like the red mark contrasted on my fair cheek, and I was not unnoticed. When the little girl saw me and screamed, I did not think, I just ran. I did not know why she screamed, perhaps I shocked her, perhaps she had been told to in case of an attack. Whatever the reason was, the innocent girls scream shook my right down to my bone and caused me to become frightened of the place I had imagined a safe haven.
When the hands leapt out and grabbed me from the darkness, I struggled but it was to no avail. My fragile body that had been groomed and trained to be weak and relying on a husband to protect me was no match for the creature who had grown in these tough streets that made surviving an everyday chore. I battled my hardest but it seemed pointless when I was restrained with one arm and pulled into a doorway, thrown into the darkness. I tried to scream, trying to imitate the young girl that had alerted the crowd of people rushing past the door outside but a hand was placed on my mouth and that action silenced me. Not because it swallowed my screams or because the dirt on it made me want to gag, but because the hand belonged to a man. A man that I had seen previously, a year before.
His eyes were the colour of the sea that my mother had taken me to when I was six, and just looking at them for one second made me think that I was drowning, swallowed by the waves of emotion that flooded my mind with feelings I did not know existed.
His hand still rested on my mouth but he was no longer watching the window with alert eyes but instead was looking at me in shock and disbelief, much like what I believed I looked like.
When he spoke his voice cut into me with its rough edges and buried itself deep into my heart, making my pulse race and my eyes widen much like his did when I spoke in return. Removing his hand with my own, our skin contrasted not only in colour but in texture; I said that his were strong and my own were weak but he corrected me, saying that his were ugly and my soft hands were beautiful.
All through the night, in that small abandoned cottage, we merged as one. We spoke and listened, we discussed our fears and dreams, goals and priorities. Our lives were so different - but we, so similar. I told him my fathers demand to marry who he chose and when his fingers gently caressed the swollen lump on my cheek, I nodded, confirming his question. Intertwining not only through our bodies but through our minds and souls , we grasped onto each other, desperate to be one, to know everything the other knew, that's why when we were woken from our silent paradise by a sound that could only be described as the most terrifying sound I have ever heard, I knew immediately what it was.
The bomb that blew up a whole street in the town was only three down from us but going to it felt like miles. His breathes were laboured as he screamed and ran towards one of the buildings that was lit by fire and immediately I knew, he had told my earlier that the couple I had witnessed from the wedding was his brother and wife, and from the agonising wail coming from his chest I knew that was who was gone, due to the actions from behind the wall.
As I wrapped my arms around him and held him close, he sunk into me, seeking comfort from my arms and i felt connected to him in a way that I had not felt since my mother, not since before I lost the world I knew. People stared, some confused and some angry but most of them looked frightened and that is when I knew that all I had been taught was wrong.
These people were not monsters of the night that devoured anything left good or pure, they were not heartless or evil, they did not kill the innocent - the people from the wall did.
I did.
That is when I decided, I decided to become not just one of the definitions of rebellion - to go against a government but to be both, I would rebel against my father, I would rebel against the people I thought I knew and most importantly,
I would rebel against myself.