REALITY CHECK

 

 

Sophie is a thirteen year old girl. Just another girl from a middle class family.

 

She doesn't have many friends, but the few she has are her entire world. It's been a while since her dad was the center of her life. Now she doesn't even know what he does for a living.

 

He used to be an architect for a very important construction company. But then there was this political mess her mom always complains about and her dad lost his job. After her mom kicked him out, Sophie lost track of his attempts to get his head out of the water.

 

Maybe she'll ask him this weekend, or the next if he decides to cancel again.

 

Her mom works as a teacher in an elementary school. She hates kids and the pay is low, but she says that in her days, a respectable woman was either a teacher or a housewife. When his father proved to be useless in providing enough money for a maid, she chose the former.

 

Her mother was raised to be the wife of a high class man, not an unemployed architect, as she so often says.

 

Not Sophie though. She'll be a doctor. Her big sister says she's crazy; that she'll never be able to afford a private university and that she couldn't possibly pass the exams at the national university with a public high school education.

 

But Sophie thinks her sister is stupid. Why wouldn't she pass the exams? A public high school should meet the level of a public university. It's common sense!

 

Sitting on the floor of the living room with her legs crossed, she watches her mom as she prepares dinner. Hamburgers and French fries again; all courtesy of the freezer in the Korean supermarket next door. Her mom hates those slitted eyes; she always tells her she's sure their making fun of her when they talk in that gibberish of a language. But Sophie thinks she's wrong. Her mom is not even that interesting to make fun of.

 

She wouldn't know how to peal a potato if her life depended on it; and that's why she keeps buying frozen food from them. They're cheaper than the big stores.

 

She's watching the news as she cooks. She's always watching the news. Sophie still remembers the day when, with a proud smile on his face, her father bought their first colour TV. It had cost him months of saving cent after cent. That was the day when their old battered black & white TV was moved to the kitchen.

 

Sophie doesn't like the news much, except when they're about a baby who got a heart transplant and came through alright, or a new baby seal being born at the Zoo. Most of the time they're about people who get killed in robberies, like her friend Cassandra's brother; or some new law that will have her mother mumbling obscenities around the house for weeks.

 

But she can't believe her ears at what the TV is saying, so she runs to the kitchen to make sure it's not her imagination.

 

Barbie is getting a divorce. You know, the doll? The reasons for such 'tragedy' make her want to laugh. It was nothing like that when her parents got a divorce. Who came up with that stuff?

 

She had a friend who loved Barbies. She had tons, which she shoved in everyone's faces because, face it, Barbies are very expensive. Not every girl could have one, less alone so many. Her name was Carol. She never saw her again after her parents committed her into a clinic because she refused to eat.

 

She didn't really understand it. Why would anyone refuse to eat? Even her mother's horrid food was better than being hungry. There was a time when her family would have to go to bed with nothing but a warm tea without sugar and a piece of bread in their stomachs. She'll never refuse a plate of food again, no matter how awful it tastes.

 

Her big sister, Patty, walks into the kitchen wearing her jacket, that little does to conceal the fact that her jeans show half her ass and her top barely covers her boobs. She grabs an apple and stares at the TV in disbelief.

 

Patty begins laughing hard, saying she always knew Ken was a fag. Her mother laughs with her. Just last week the both of them were enraged because the congress had permitted gay people to form a civil bond; kinda like a marriage. Now they'd make fun of them every chance they got.

 

It's not that important, Sophie decides. She's never really liked Barbies anyway. She prefers teddy bears. She'd never tell her friends though, because they'd think she's just a little girl.

 

But now the TV informs that a judge had to fail in favour of a twenty year old man who'd slept with a thirteen year old girl and got caught in bed by the girl's sister. Apparently, the law for statutory rape had been removed six years ago from the legislation and no one ever knew about it.

 

Her mother blinks, then shrugs. She and Patty agree with the psychologist that appears talking on the screen, saying that in this day and age, thirteen year old girls are sexually mature to make their own choices. That as long as there is consent from both parties, it's not rape.

 

Well, Sophie thinks, all her friends have boyfriends. Age is not really that important, is it?

 

As her sister and her mother begin arguing because Patty is going out with that boy again, Sophie leaves the kitchen in silence.

 

Sure, girls her age are mature, aren't they? She knew everything there is to know about sex from school before she met Jonathan. And Jonathan is way more mature than the boys in her class. All her friends were in awe when they found out she was dating a man; not a boy.

 

Jonathan is in college. He'll be a lawyer someday; and maybe then they can get married. Or maybe not, because Jonathan doesn't believe in marriage. But Sophie doesn't care; she'll do whatever he wants.

 

She looks back towards the kitchen. The argument between her mother and sister is getting heated. It's a pity, she wanted to talk to her mom. Maybe she can tell her if it's normal that her period has stopped. She remembers the speaker in sex ed. saying that some young girls were irregular at first. But she's always been regular.

 

Maybe it will pass?

 

~End~