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She was oblivious as she stepped out of the train. She was oblivious of the next journey she was about to embark on. This time less of a physical journey, more mental, more emotional, a journey that would most certainly change the course of her life.

As she shuffled her way past the early evening commuters, her mind filled with many irrelevant thoughts. Had she known her fate, she would have used her time more wisely, she would have conjured up thoughts of how happy she was last night at dinner, how her heart skipped a beat, maybe four, when he placed his hands on hers. Perhaps she may have even cast her mind back a few months, maybe she may have thought about how hard she laughed when her mum, her sisters, and herself were last together, as they competed on who did the native 'ishekiri' dance they had watched on a TV documentary best. Had she known her fate she would not have preoccupied her thoughts with concerns on how ill fitting her blouse was, how she had carelessly let her hair grow out too much, how her shoes had seen their better days. With hindsight she would have done a lot of things differently. That is life. You cannot connect the dots looking forward only looking back.

Now she was looking back. Now she was harboring feelings of incapacitated rage, impotent and worthless rage. She had no one to pin the blame on, less so someone to bare the brunt of her pent up anger. Who is responsible? Who could she blame for her lack of foresight? It was no one's fault, it was not her fault. But she needed something, anything, to help her get through this, to start rebuilding her life. She was not content to accept that this was the summation of her life. That what she had accomplished what she had achieved will be all that she ever will. It wasn't enough, she was capable of more. But now she laid on her bed a shadow of her former self. Drifting in and out of the grey space between dreaming and imagination, where she controlled what she saw what she thought, where reality and illusion were intertwined, were one, like black and white coming together to form grey. She lay trying to put the pieces together, shifting between blaming herself, and visions of some immortal being, some bigger person accepting the blame, telling her to move on, but nothing was concrete, because she knew these were all her minds doing, she still had no one to blame. She still had not accepted her fate. She still won't let anyone in. She could not move on. There is a shadow hanging over her that would never let her be. Not letting her walk un-tormented by her past mistake, her momentary bout of carelessness and stupidity.

She was thinking about her shoes, how scuffed they were at the tip. How the salt water, had left a white line going all around it. Had she not had the sense to look around her, had she not been wise enough to cross the road when she noticed something odd? Maybe it was just the indescribable joy of last night that had blinded her, clouded her vision, and rendered her powerless to notice her surroundings.

She was coming up to the park now. Now she remembered that she saw him, but then it was blurred, he paled in significance to her irrelevant thoughts. Now she remembered noticing him, noticing his awkward swagger, noticing his hand stroking something in his pocket. Now she remembered the other passers by cutting him a suspicious look then quickly running past. Then none of this registered, it didn't matter then, more important was her blouse that hung too loose and made her shoulders look broad.

For weeks that was where her memory failed her, That was where her recollection stopped. Had she forgotten, or was she willing herself to forget. Had it actually happened? But as time passed the pieces came together, like putting together a receipt that had been torn up into little pieces, it was long and tedious. Some gaps remained at the edges of her memories receipt, some pieces were still crumpled. But she knew, she knew what had happened. What she did not know for fact, what she could not remember, was penciled in by her imagination. In reality it may have been worse, it may have been better, she did not know. But that which she did remember, however blurred, however fuzzy, was enough, to destabilize her.

She had been raped, she knew that, and that was enough.