Aya's Odyssey

I live in a city.

A beautiful city.

The streets are clean and orderly. The people are polite, kind and well-mannered. There is no crime or violence here. The government keeps everyone safe and happy.

Everyone except me, that is. I'm not well-mannered. I don't have a job. And the government is trying to kill me!

I used to be like all the other people here. I followed rules. I had a good job at an office. I was even married for a time, though that didn't last long. My ex-husband ended up on the wrong side of the law, but he's in prison now, so it's all right. He still sends me letters once in a while, which is nice of him, but he can't help me right now.

The problem is that nobody else can either! Nobody else understands why this is happening to me! I haven't been arrested or charged with any crimes! Why would anyone want to kill me?!

I've been running away from my problems for a while now. It started when they came to my house and told me they were taking my daughter away to be "reclaimed". They said she wasn't going to a good school anymore and she was staying out too late at night with boys who had bad influences on her, but those boys never bothered her! She'd be fine if she just left her stupid friends behind! But noooooo, they had to take her away from me anyway! It wasn't fair! They wouldn't let me see her again until she was 18 years old! That was two years ago! What kind of government takes children away from their mothers?!

That was when I started running away from them. If they wouldn't leave her alone to grow up in peace, then I didn't want anything to do with them anymore either! So I started living outside, hiding out in the forest with some friends for a while until one day someone recognized me and told everyone where I was hiding out and now they're saying that I've committed crimes against the state!

So here I am again, running away from them instead of dealing with things like an adult might do! But what choice do I have? They won't listen to me when I tell them what really happened or why I did it. No one ever listens to me about anything anymore because apparently everything I say is wrong because of this stupid condition called "Schizophrenia" which means there's something wrong with my brain chemistry that means that every single thing that comes out of my mouth is wrong somehow regardless of whether it's true or not and nobody wants to listen to anyone who says things like that because we're all so "dangerous" you know?

But what are you supposed to do when people won't listen? How can you prove you're right if they won't even give you a chance? And how can you possibly stay sane when everything you say just gets twisted into something bad instead of letting you explain yourself? How can anyone expect me to not get angry after 16 years of having everything twisted around and taken out of context by these lunatics?! So now everyone thinks there's something wrong with me because I'm upset about all this nonsense and I can't explain myself because everything turns into another reason for them wanting to lock me up forever!