BERRIANA’S STORY
Writing this blog is like an adrenalin fix. It enables me to say things that otherwise would have to remain unsaid – unsaid that is unless I had a death wish like those misguided souls who willingly sign up for Killer Ball. I’d have been rounded up by the Snoops in an instant if they’d have had even the merest suspicion that I was sending suspect messages to Outer Neblus on the Link. My comments would have been taken very personally rather than viewing them as a contribution to a democratic debate about how Anticlockwise should be run. But that’s just wishful thinking isn’t it?
Take my most recent `conversation’ with Berriana as an example of how important the Link has become in my life. It also taught me the lesson that my fate could be much worse.
I’d been
talking on and off with Berriana for a couple of months – usually chatty stuff about her daily life on Neblus. We discovered that we both like chess. When we play together over the Link a game can last anything up to a week. She insists for some reason on having the white pieces. We don’t impose any time restrictions for reflection between moves. We like taking our time.
Nothing exceptional in any of that. Then out of the blue a week ago she just opened up and I saw her in a whole new different light. I discovered the full horror of Berriana’s story…
Her mother had died just a few hours before she contacted me. Berriana was in a state of shock. Paradoxically, the only person she felt she could talk to was me – Zeb Solitanu, a reprobate citizen in Anticlockwise over a million miles away from her.
The reason she couldn’t discuss it with anyone else was because she was an illegal immigrant. She didn’t have the right paperwork – she’d been living under the radar with her mother for the past fifteen years, hoping that her citizenship status would somehow miraculously be resolved. I didn’t say anything when she told me this. I knew from bitter experience that miracles never happen.
Anyway, six years earlier she’d had a relationship with a man, had become pregnant and had given birth to Loleena, a baby daughter. Loleena became the centre of Berriana’s universe. The man was soon jealous of the attention that Berriana lavished on Loleena and started treating her badly. After suffering in silence for several years, Berriana decided that the only solution was to leave him. She was no longer prepared to suffer abuse and violence at the hands of a brute who didn’t respect her.
That’s when her troubles had really begun. On learning of her intentions the man had become even more violent than usual. Fearful that Berriana would take his daughter from him, he had acquired a gun, returned drunk to their flat one night and pointed it at her. He accused Berriana of ruining his life through her selfishness. He’d consumed so much alcohol that she could see him swaying in front of her.
Berriana was terrified but managed to place Loleena behind her in an attempt to shield her daughter from danger with her own body. The gun had gone off, perhaps by accident. Who could tell? Drink clouds your judgement. She discovered later that the bullet had passed through her own body, narrowly missing her vital organs, but had instantly killed Loleena who’d been sheltering behind her. As soon as the man realised that he had murdered his own daughter, he immediately shot himself.
In the space of a few seconds, Berriana’s life had been destroyed. She’d lost Loleena, the most precious element of her being. Berriana herself was seriously wounded but over time she had slowly recovered physically. Psychologically, it was another matter.
That was Berriana’s Story. It had all happened two years ago. Berriana thought that she was finally recovering and finding her way again. And then her mother had died a few hours earlier. It was the final straw. She was seriously contemplating suicide.
I felt humbled when she told me all this. I decided to do everything I could to support her, to make every effort to keep her alive. I went out of my way to speak to her on the Link as often as I could, listening patiently to anything she wanted to say to me. That was a month ago. Berriana is still alive but I have no idea what she might do from one moment to the next.
Berriana’s Story, her terrible predicament on Outer Neblus, played on my mind. I suspect that were I in Berriana’s shoes I might even be tempted to throw my life away in a pointless game of Killer Ball…
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