Friday, May 20, 2011

Tru

Tru knew she was right every second of the day which was why she strode with her chin up looking everyone confidently in the eye. Her height was sourced mostly in her sapling legs, young striplings with a rubbery bend she glided smoothly on instead of the clockwork oscillation of joints. Tru pressed forward in all things with even determination, eroding everything in front of her persistence. Her hair was cut efficiently short to her head, she wore smart business attire, stylish shoes with severe points. Tru looked like an attorney you didn't want to get into a scrape with.

She was the youngest of four daughters with stern, Kenyan parents. She grew up with the quietest voice in a house of cross examination. Her sister's would make the preliminary volleys, haphazard and full of implication that tried to assert her guilt by association. They made statements in a common voice instead of asking questions, always using the word 'we' in place of "I," hoping Tru would hang herself in her assertions. Her mother would scatter them like pecking chicks and begin her interview in the guise of friendship. Everything her mother asked was framed in the love and guilt of parenthood, drawing information like sap from a tree, drip by drip on the edge of warming and cooling air. Finally her father would interrupt and approach his child with the head on, fear of God approach. He would feign surprise at every topic, even when Tru was sure he had heard it before, and then command "Daughter, Tell me the truth!" as a prefix to every question.

It was the crucible she was born from, argument was a pass time in her family and she expected to be raked over the coals with every decision she made. Many nights of spirited discussion ended when she learned her father had agreed with her all along, he was just evaluating the strength of her conviction. When she was released into the world she realized people that knew her talked to her differently, they loaded their statements with evidence, trying to inoculate it against the resistance she would offer. Tru smiled, her eyes beacon clear and shining.

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