My birth name is Ayesha Singh, I awake each day glorifying in the simple fact that I am alive, whole, and well, this could so easily have not been the case. I am fourth generation Asian - British-Pakistani, I was trapped into a childhood marriage by my family, given to a man many years older than myself, sold to him into life-long servitude as a bride, for less than thirty dirty pieces of silver.
As a child, when I dreamed of becoming a bride, as most young girls do, marriage was imagined to be a forever-after affair to a princely young man with dusky skin, merry eyes and flashing white teeth, a kind person who would love and cherish me, who I could love and care for in return. Marriage was not expected to be a continual onslaught of nightmares; never in my wildest dreams did I ever envisage what was to be the course of my married life. No-one prepared me for the ordeal, absolutely nothing was had been expected, but I quickly became accustomed to the trauma: the continual emotional, physical, and mental abuse that accompanied a marriage such as the one I had been obligated to agree to.
Everything had happened so quickly behind closed doors, there had been no discussion, no introductions under watchful parental eyes, there had been nothing resembling verbal agreement. I had been coerced by my parents, under pain of death, to accept a bent old man as my spouse. It was my destiny I was informed; at the age of twelve years old, to become a child-bride: an untouched virgin, a stud mare, a breed-bitch, worth nothing more than an empty womb to fill with however many offspring the ancient husband decreed was enough. In the culture I had been born into I knew there would never be enough off-spring. I was seemingly born precisely for this end: to be sold, a chattel for reproduction purposes; such was my dreary lot, endless pregnancies, numerous miscarriages, copious babies, infinite toil.
Pain and terror always accompanied the presence of the husband. On the evening of our wedding proper, his primary marital duty had been to burst open the stitches and old scar tissue that the Auntie relative had created to protect my virginity, a once-upon-a-time secret ceremonial procedure, an illegal, yet mother-sanctioned, female genital mutilation, carried out by an aging female relative wielding a rusty, razor-edged implement, the operation performed upon a cluttered kitchen table amid debris of the evening meal. An unforgettable, life-changing day of blood, pain, and tears, clouding everything afterwards in my short life of previously gentle warm hands and cuddled loving, a day when I was little more than a staggering infant. An unforgettable bloody day.
I was wrenched from my family, thrown into another household in ignorance and fright. Life began anew, if it could be called life, it stretched out before me in a threnody of lamentable depression. I prayed, oh how I prayed, night and day, every waking hour found a softly whispered intense prayer tremble from my lips. No-one heard the prayers, no one answered my heartfelt pleas for salvation, until, one cold wintery day, as I lay crumpled contemplating suicide, a statuesque ebony-skinned woman with huge compelling brown eyes and a compelling attitude, quite literally materialised in my life. I had been compelled to answer the insistent ringing of the doorbell, a campanology pounding in my head; the young woman standing, waiting, informed me in no-nonsense terms, that she was responding to my prayers – she was here to rescue me.
I had opened the door fully and with a waft of my hand I invited her to enter, come in, whereupon she walked straight towards my body and disappeared! From that very instant when the female presence first materialise and was subsequently subsumed into my body I felt a difference inside of me – almost audible, a sudden shift, as if a missing jigsaw piece clicked into its final place to complete a full picture. I was still myself, yet I was more, I now shared my human shell with the entity of another.
I could do nothing more than open myself and share with this other, this inner entity, who informed me she was here to stay for a while, until I no longer had need of her, she told me that she came to me in my hour of greatest need, that her existence clouded in time, hidden and of no consequence to anyone else, was currently partnered with my own psyche. She spoke to me in my mind, telling me that her true name was unmentionable, she had been named Ligeia in a Roman existence, she was an immortal being, and she was here to help me find myself, endure and succeed - this introduction must now suffice.
Faithfully recounting an earlier portion of her life …. I hereby take up the reins of word-smithery, to relate an abridged historical narrative, to impart to you, the beginnings of Ligeia’s personal story.
*
Ancient Rome …. There was no recollection of her early years - seemingly life began in the fertile Nile Delta region at the age of four years, at least that is the first memory retained and visited over those first few years: memories of Mother, warm dark skin: soft yet calloused hands, braided, oil plaited hair and rigid scarified facial patterns, laughter and chatter of tribe members, nutritious foods willingly given - all senses engaged in an infant’s perception. Barely time in a mortal body to enjoy life she was ripped from the wiry arms of her mother, roughly handled, squealing she had been dropped into an open space that had no comfort, landing in a container with several other infants, in the dank hold of a swaying, bucking slaver ship.
Many had perished on the sea voyage to the land of the Slaver’s Market - her own Mother amongst them. On the block, displayed like a piece of meat, poked, prodded, fondled, she had been sold for many pieces of silver, to be bought by a prominent Roman Senator, Augustus Agrippa, to become a playmate, a companion, eventually a personal body-maid to the senator’s only child – the Daughter of the House Agrippa - Augusta. In those ages past this was the beginning of the necessary tempering of her immortal spirit, she had to learn and to endure.
Different from others who surrounded her – different appearance: attitudes, the shape of her feet, deportment, an unerring capability to walk a perfectly straight line when traversing warm floor tiles - different, not from any training but from some hidden well-spring of inborn natural ability, as if an untrained dancer who knows the dance without knowing the tune or hearing the music. All her life, which to all extents and purposes had been a short one – she had retained her youthful 16 earth years of age appearance, although unbeknownst to many, except a chosen few, she is not a youth – she is aeons old. Different.
She remembers little if nothing of tribal members, all information gleaned over the intervening years had been happenstance remarks, throw-away comments often designed to degrade, wound, mark her difference from the norm. The norm being white, elitist, privileged -a race of people capable of outstanding cruelty and formidable mental and physical destruction – Roman. The race she was born into was other, prized by the outside world for the deep ebony bloom of skin, physical attraction, good bone structure teeth and hair, the people of the Nubian race, are worth their weight in gold, this people derived from the very cradle of civilisation – they were, still are, quite literally priceless to many collectors of unique people.
As a baby she was given every attention, sharing the wet-nurse with the only daughter of the house and subsequently all the lessons, niceties, accoutrements to transform a female person into a worthy young lady. There were of course the differences, the playmate was being schooled to catch the eye of a worthy spouse – a potential successor to the name of the House Agrippa, while she was to become the ladies maid, subservient, and invisible when required on occasion, present in body but apparently expected to not have an ounce of sense or any personal opinions of her own.
Nubian, a rare commodity in itself, but add to the equation the female orientation, fortunately saved from the blade of the witches knife, the intact virginal state, the comely appearance prevalent amongst tribal kind and she is even now in modern 21stCsociety considered high status slave quality. Desirability was further confirmed by being schooled in the arts of pleasure, music, letters, verse, and song. The final premium, if such it may be called – she possessed a commanding voice and spoke, amongst several, the native language of the land in which she was obligated to live. To all intents and purposes in the eyes of her then Master, and any future potential purchase owners, she was truly a priceless jewel in a coterie of slaves, because make no mistake about this, that is what she was - a slave, stolen from her homeland, her family, bartered, sold, owned body and soul by a man – Senator Augustus Agrippa of the Roman Empire.
Enforced gentility and burgeoning skills for compliant bedroom games and the oft celebratory occasions she had been obligated to attend were negligible. Concealed behind a cool facade of pleasing willingness - a burning angry need, writhing deep within innards, emotive feelings that would not be appeased by the enforced life complied with. At the age of twelve earth years, she made a calculated decision of her own; the warrior genesis concealed within her DNA, unable to be nullified by enforced societal programming, was not noticeable, it had simply been submerged – until that tender age, when circumstances, combined with the onset of puberty, dictated a dramatic change was necessary and she quite deliberately compelled that particular genetic marker-code to activate. Concealed beneath a pleasing demeanour of an acquiescent young female attendant, an inner Demon Warrior flared into being. The Deity to whom she regularly prayed had answered her prayers.
Her given Roman name was Ligeia, House slave of Augustus Agrippa, her inner name remains undisclosed, a secret, that is considered unsafe to disclose, to anyone – anyone at all, a true name, with remarkable power that should never be revealed, even under pain of death – the name is hers and hers alone.
In Rome, by day, she was the other everyone expected her to be, groomed, attentive, a polished trophy to follow in the footsteps of the Mistress: fetching, carrying, behaving, practicing invisibility in plain sight. By night she was transformed, blended darkness, truly invisible in shadows and shade.
Roman, there was no requirement for training within a ludus, no training master to teach her how to fight correctly, to use the net, the sword, the axe, the knife, the spear, how to win. Combat was programmed within, and she was then, as now, incapable of losing any confrontational battle, whatever the cause, imbued with skills unmentionable by Higher Goddess Beings, she became a lean, mean, killing machine, a scourge for any who maltreated any female slave.
By the time she was sixteen earth years of age - the age I began this foretelling - she was darkness incarnate, clad in unearthly obsidian-dull armour. Plated with metallurgical magic by The Goddess. She could slip through now-time and space unseen by mortal beings. A cloak of imperception was integral to her person, it lived and breathed - as does she - enabling time and place instantaneous relocation. Suffice to divulge that in Roman time she was a Demon Gladiatrix and to date through her multiple transmutations she remains unbeaten.
In this here and now she is once again an instrument of justice - an Avenging Angel, THE primary warrior of her type, brought into being from a stygian darkness to counter-balance the scales of justice that weigh as heavily as a load-stone on the yoke of feminine slavery, she is the perfectly designed weapon to balance out injustice against women.
Misogynistic males, from time beyond time, have been continually sought out and punished - nullified, if need be, but punished they most certainly were, and they never understood what was coming until it was too late to mend their wicked ways, then perfect justice, accorded to fit their crimes, was administered by Ligeia’s Decree.
Ligeia’s Total Transition was finally achieved by her age of eighteen earth years, fait-accompli –Yes, always hiding in plain sight, she had been a Slave, but now those times and the Roman people who enslaved her were in the dead and gone distant past. In the here and now, unbeknown to almost everyone, her presence lurked, in the depths of the dark shadowland of between, Ligeia continually watched, waiting to catch transgressions against females like myself. Then as now - she is the law-maker of the feminine, she is …. Judge, Jury and Executioner.
So many parallels and similes to my own life, such comparability. Ligeia, Avenging Angel par excellence had heard my prayers across time and space and decided enough! A cause worthy of heed had been drawn to attention, she was now resident, here in my life, to take control, guide and make requisite differences, to enact change, and punish, if deemed necessary.
*
Taking shape on the doorstep, before me in the 21stC, uttering words I had hungered to hear spoken, I surrendered to the inevitable. I retreated to my bed and as I lay there curled, beaten and bruised I pledged to follow Ligeia’s orders and without hesitation I became her willing acolyte.
Ligeia could shape-shift, I gave her permission to inhabit my body, to share with me my mortal shell, conjoined we would act as one in thought, habit and manner. I still looked like myself but now I too was different. A heady concept – two into one, and it made me wonder if this is how it felt to be bi-polar or even schizophrenic, having a body inhabited by several other undetectable entities.
I had told no-one of the abuse I suffered at the hands of the husband, bruises were hidden beneath copious layers of clothing, he never touched my face so there was never an outward sign of any maltreatment, unless it was a fragile-appearing stance or slow body movements. I was embarrassed, ashamed in my perceived failures, naturally quiet. I was not an introvert as such, I was just too frightened to open my mouth and speak for fear of painful reprisals; as a result, I appeared to be preternaturally shy to outsiders. It was accepted as a norm by the society into which I was born to be subservient towards a male, especially a husband, who truly did own his females lock, stock and body. My downcast gaze, bent head and rounded shoulders were a proclamation of utmost filial obedience.
I was the husband’s third and youngest wife, his two other wives used me as a skivvy, an unpaid servant, fetching, carrying, scrubbing, cleaning. Thankfully I was not expected to cook but the mountains of dirty crockery, cutlery and glassware kept me up washing and drying into the early hours of dawn when I was then obliged to become a sex-slave to the rampant desires of the old man.
The two other wives freed from sexual attention smiled artfully with pursed lips at my gaunt mien and watched carefully for evidence of pregnancy. Fertilization and a tummy bump would signal a return to the husbands bed for them, and they prayed for my fertility and fecundity around the clock. Nothing materialised, no baby bump. So, I was beaten and abused day and night – as if torture and oppression would result in a marital success.
The husband was a tyrant, he considered women to be less than animals, he was the ultimate expression of a misogynist. Watching from inside, though my eyes, I could feel Ligeia bristle with anger, in my mind she counselled I play the waiting game, ‘slowly, slowly catchee monkey,’ she murmured within me. Instead of fighting, struggling against this stronger person, I became compliant to any wish or command levelled at me by the husband, I smiled with downcast eyes, I behaved with exaggerate propriety exactly as I was expected to behave, I did not thrive, but I survived.
During such times I turned to meditation, taking my fragile mind out of the abuse equation, he could touch my body, but my soul was untouchable, sacrosanct. My attitude infuriated him, goading him on to heightened levels of dominance and pain. Just when I thought I could bear no more, that he had finally broken my spirit, something happened. The instrument of torture – his manhood – ceased to perform- it shrivelled up like a tiny worm and disappeared into his body! Of course, it was my fault, as was everything else, I had not done this or that or the other, he snapped at me to “get out of my sight before I kill you.” On knees I scrambled to obey.
In the mornings the two elder wives were agog – “what happened?” they twittered in concern, worried in case they had to resume marital activities. “Nothing happened,” was my simple response.
This nightly occurrence became a psychological battleground and culminated with my banishment.
The two elder wives did not suffer the same fate as I and returned unhappily to active bedroom duty.
Each time the husband called me for me something else shrivelled-up! His testis disappeared into his body, his lips appeared desiccated, facial bones seemed to shift, concaving his cheeks to give him a skeletal visage, he looked dreadful when I was obliged to be in attendance upon his whims. These bodily alterations lasted for several weeks, he began to believe that I had hexed him, he could no longer look me in the eyes, he shunned my presence and eventually became positive there was an evil spirit inhabiting my person. Of course, to some degree he was correct – I carried the spirit of Ligeia within, and she was supporting my trembling courage.
One morning, out of the blue, I was dragged, in a dishevelled state, out of the house and marched to the local mosque, there my marriage to the husband was annulled, three times he spoke the words of abjuration – I was deemed to be a barren wife, he insisted I was possessed, and he wanted rid of me in that instant.
Done. Three little sentences, spoken out loud, in front of an Iman, and I was suddenly free.
I did not return to the house, there was nothing there for me, I left behind the degradation, the abuse and pain, instead I knocked on the door of a Woman’s Refuge and begged admittance, pleaded with them to help me. Fortune smiled and I was guaranteed entrance.
So many fellow Muslim women incarcerated, hiding away from dominant male partners, Father’s, Brother’s, Uncle’s all of them hell-bent on the subjugation of women, females of all ages being forced to recognise Sharia Law and adhere to strict Muslim ethics.
Being born in the United Kingdom is not a guarantee of freedom. In my case only the colour of my skin and my elderly Grandparents ethnic origins marked me as an Asian British Pakistani. The two holidays of my youth when our entire family travelled to Pakistan, to celebratory gatherings, are all I knew and recognised of my own Pakistani origins. I did not realise the holidays and the celebrations were marriage ceremonies that tied me to the elderly village man who was to become my husband. I became his ticket into a westernised civilisation, by marrying me, he and his two other wives gained entry to the United Kingdom – to Blackburn, the place of my birth, a town, almost a city, in the Northwest, where Muslim girls were not forced into bondage – at least that is what I had once understood to my own cost, and apparently to other females in the refuge. Such an understanding is not technically true and forced marriages as well as FGM. both of which are still conducted behind closed doors are of universal and widespread concern.
There is much to answer for in extended traditional Muslim families where numerous abused females may be incarcerated in lifelong terror.
I believe Ligeia was the avenging angel who helped me condemn the old husband, the abusive old tyrant who eventually set me free. Perhaps, like a childhood invisible friend, she lived only in my conjuring – in my imagination. Now-a-days she no longer resides in the temple of my mind, She has left me, to search out more causes to fight, battles to win, to rectify, sometimes with a velvet glove as in my own case, and other times with more drastic remedies. Misogynistic men who died in the beds of their homes from no apparent reason, crashed their vehicle, walked in front of trains, perished in house-fires – all these ‘accidents’ bore the signature of Ligeia’s revenge, if one knew where to look. She had no need to even unsheathe her weapons – it was all done within the mind, psychologically induced paranormal. Occasionally a previously healthy husband would be discovered in his own bed as shrivelled and darkened as a current and for such there was much medical discussion but no conclusive answers – but I recognised the conclusive sentence.
I thrived outside of marriage, winning a place to University on a Scholarship – eventually claiming a Doctorate. Finally, no surprise - I became a Counsellor, I operate a welcoming practice from a suite of consultation rooms, a different type of refuge where troubled females of any race, colour, or creed visit; find solace, understanding and hope. Over the years I have mentored and assisted numerous females in dire personal circumstance, such as the ones I (and Ligeia too) have personally experienced.
My past no longer haunts me - in many ways I am strengthened, tempered in the fires -blessings in disguise enable me to empathise and assist females within numerous Women’s Groups.
Along the way, I have subtly recruited and trained my own acolytes, these women will find their own imaginary avatar warriors. I have equipped them with the necessary mindfulness techniques to counteract a multitude of misogynistic circumstances, and, anointed them on their foreheads with a small dab of invisible essence of power, a blessing received as intended, just as I too received one so many years previously, this touch may be theoretical but who truly knows.
I have been truly blessed - my own transition from frightened little girl to avenging acolyte and all it pertains is complete - the prize …. Freedom.
I have put my fictitious friend Ligeia away, she was always a figment of my imagination, or perhaps not? She came to me in my hour of bleakest need, in answer to my prayers, a sort of sister-spirit, brought into being by a mind stretched to breaking point by cruelty, mental, emotional, and physical abuse. I understand - I know that she waits in that quiet meditative place deep inside of me, always ready to answer my call for assistance, a comforting silent friend for the rest of my life.
This is a brief account of my transition from scared little girl to a worldly, professional woman. My name is Doctor Ayesha Singh, and I am free.
Biography
Janet Stoyel is a Practicing Wordsmith. After a long career in Textiles, Janet now focuses her attention upon Creative Writing. Janet writes for the pure appreciation and joy found in language: in letters: words, sentences, she chooses, organises, weaves, and constructs, her written vocabulary into her distinctive freeform language.
Janet lives in a small Somerset Village in the UK. It is a sleepy, rural area of Wetlands noted for the growing of Willow and the making of baskets – a great place to write!