5

They kept me tied up in that narrow bed, for days. I did not know where I was, but I could hear the occasional roar of sand storms outside the door at night. It seemed that they had as yet decided my fate, and if it were not for the kindly woman who came in a few times a day to feed me and to allow me to perform necessary functions I would have long been dead. I had later learned from her that they were a fundamentalist faction of the people who fastidiously believed in tradition; and that it was this fastidious belief in tradition that has as yet not sealed my fate. It seems that despite the Prince's evidence, the elders still do not see it a wise decision to condemn a pregnant woman to death. I had also found out that the Prince was only a new addition to their members, and that this was only brought on by the fact that he had been banished from the palace by orders of the sheikh. She further confided that she had never been comfortable by what they are doing and that she believed that their antiquated belief system had no room in modern society, but that she was still bound by those rules because of her family.

I was both aghast and relieved. It was this antiquated belief that has as yet been the only impediment to my demise and yet it was also the same thing that has oppressed this poor woman. Quasay may have many traditions and women may be seen as inferior to men, but even we lived in better conditions. Women were cared for, even if seen inferior; although, I realize that even in my life that cannot be often said as true. I was bartered to the sheikh as a toy, molested by the prince, impregnated and then pawned off to marry someone else. Maybe I had just lived in better conditions with my father that I had never seen how our country had been so oppressive… our country needs a strong sheikh who would put us out of the dark ages and shed some light to the oppression of its people; and I dearly prayed that it would be the sheikh, despite of what had happened so far, I found I still believed in him.