straw on my back

I always wondered about the phrase, the straw that broke the camel’s back. How could straw possible do that? As a child, metaphors like this baffled me. I never understood the human language. Maybe it had something to do with me never hearing it. It didn’t bother me, not being able to hear. I immersed myself in my art the only time I was ever bothered about being different – when I was a teenager. And since then I had never felt out of place again.

I seemed to be raising a normal child, I was a fairly well to do artist and graphic designer, I was happily married. The second time around seemed to be treating me better. My first marriage was a disaster. He beat me, made me feel like it was my fault I could not hear, he thought I couldn’t tell when he spoke to his mistresses on the phone, in hushed whispers, that bastard.

But one day, I understood the camel’s predicament. That poor, godforsaken camel. When he found out I was pregnant, he beat me till I bled. He did not want a child with "defects" he said. I miscarried.

I left that night with everything in the world I could ever need: my essentials. Since my fourth week of marriage I had always kept a small bag with clothes and my jewellery, ready to make a dash. That, along with my most prized canvas, and a camcorder which had footage of me trying to tell my first husband that the pregnancy was a mistake, footage of him then beating the pulp out of me. I had my lawyer friend on speed-dial. And once she arrived, I left with those three things. Oh yes, and my self respect. The most essential of all.