POUNCE, SOURINA

KABOBfest.

December 8, 2010

By Sarakenos

A few years ago, Sourina’s dental clinic had been raided by Ehuda’s gang. They subdued Sourina, handcuffed and blindfolded her before locking her up in the storage room. Her assistant, Samar, was out on her lunch break. Upon discovering what had happened, Samar went straight back home.

Shortly after her shock had faded, she leaked the story to Sourina’s family, trusted friends, and of course the authorities, but it was humiliatingly useless. Those among her family and friends who took action were disappeared. The authorities had been paid and bought several times over, and the majority of the people just didn’t really care what happened to Sourina. Some even visited Ehuda’s clinic and got their teeth cleaned, knowing that Sourina was locked up in the adjacent room.

Under Ehuda’s management, the clinic became ten times as successful. It was expanded, and new technology was brought in from Europe, Russia, and America. Moreover, two janitors, Egyptanna and Yordasia, were added to Ehuda’s staff. At times, Yordasia and Egyptanna would hold Sourina down as Ehuda recommenced his daily punching and raping. 

“She keeps disturbing the peace at the clinic,” Ehuda would often say. “She really leaves me no choice.”

When some of Ehuda’s more outspoken visitors told him that he should ease Sourina’s pain, perhaps even reconcile with her and share the clinic, maybe let her practice dentistry in one of the five rooms he had, Ehuda would repeat the same speech he had been telling everyone; that if he lets Sourina out and treats her with respect, gives her her own office and dental tools, there was no telling whether Sourina would be appreciative. 

So many times, Ehuda claimed, while he was raping Sourina, she would swear to him that the day will come when she would take her revenge. “How can you share your clinic with someone who says they want to throw you into the sea? I absolutely have no objection in sharing ten or even twenty percent of my clinic with her, but she’s the one who’s bent on having it all for herself, even if it led to my death in the process! She doesn’t really care about the clinic, and never did. She just hates me and wants me dead!”

Some of Ehuda’s patients, while in the waiting room, would call on Egyptanna the janitor, and quietly put a bottle of juice in her hand and whisper “give this to Sourina;” Egyptanna would throw them out of the clinic. While most patients thought that the janitors would be naturally more sympathetic with Sourina, it turned out that both Egyptanna and Yordasia had been secretly “servicing” Ehuda after work hours. More recently they have developed the appetite to share their porn in public.

Unknown to Ehuda and his staff, Sourina had finally managed to find a scalpel in the storage room. When Egyptanna was bribed by a patient to let him into the storage room to give Sourina some bread, Sourina pounced at them and slashed their skin. The sympathetic patient subdued Sourina and took the scalpel away from her hand, sat her down, caressing her hair and soothing her ears with the words of wisdom:

“Sourina, look, I know you’re angry, and God knows I would be as angry as you had I been put through what you have been put through. But let us be logical here. What options do you have? You can’t undo the past! Besides, he offered you to share the clinic and resume a normal life. Don’t you see that vengeance won’t do you any good? Don’t you see that hatred and bigotry would only keep you locked up here even longer? I sincerely urge you, Sourina, to show Ehuda your peaceful intentions. And with time, you will realize that there is no need for bloodshed. Make him trust you, Sourina. We all have it in us to live in peace and harmony.”

Sourina said nothing. Realizing that his efforts to put sense into Sourina had been pointless, the patient got up and walked out of the room. But before Yordasia shut the door, Sourina, with her bruised face and fractured limbs, gasped for air and whimpered: “It’s my clinic. I’m gonna take it back.”

Gazing into Sourina’s eyes with his hands over his waist, the patient shook his head and sighed, as he turned to the janitors and said: “She’s hopeless.”

The truth is, however, she’s anything but hopeless. 

And that’s Ehuda’s recurring nightmare; that no matter how much he conspires and extends his arms of friendship throughout the world, and no matter how much recognition and acceptance his money can buy, deep down he knows what he has done, and he knows that if he was in Sourina’s place, he would never agree to give up one friggin’ inch of her clinic. 

The equation is clear: Sourina’s emancipation is his expulsion. 

He knows this. 

That’s how he justifies his terror, starvation, and torture as “self-defense.” 

None of his tricks have worked in convincing Sourina to let go and start over (and even if they did, he wouldn’t recognize that he succeeded because he can’t trust her; and why would he trust her after what he had done to her?). 

Under the water’s surface, Sourina is waiting for the stars in the sky to get aligned.