…I want a woman in my palm, tiny, completely overwhelmed, utterly helpless and broken, to stand there, to kneel there, and beg.
Beg for her life, maybe. Or the lives of her family, or her friends, or some precious thing, or to save something that without me will be lost.
Not freedom, never that, or anything like rights or fair treatment, because it’s clear that those things are gone, never to return, and to ask for them, no matter how persuasively, is just empty words. No, she knows that, in many ways, this is her last, true free act a free being, or a living thing at all, and this is her last shot for the one thing most important to her and she damn well better make this count, because if she wastes this chance, this one, final chance, her failure will haunt her for however long she still lives.
And so she begs. Pleads. Casts aside dignity, pose and honor, promises anything, everything, if I just do this one thing for her, calls upon any affection I may have ever had for her or anyone who knows her, all her womanly wiles, to worship me as a god, anything.
And I look at her face, broken and pleading, covered in tears, and I choose.
Maybe I accept her plea, and take her and her desperate, pathetic gratitude with me as I go on my way. Maybe I kill her. Maybe I destroy what she loves before she dies, so it haunts her last living moments, or after, to spare her the pain of her lose in some small way.
Maybe I accept, and then do it anyways, and laugh and laugh at how it destroys her, to give her this hope before taking away just as easily. Maybe I say yes, and come back later to do it anyways, and leave her ignorant that all her work was for nothing. Maybe I say no, while actually sparing what she loved, and delight in her sorrow, knowing I could destroy her worldview with a few simple words.
But in the end, it’s all my choice, and all she has are empty words and hollow hope, and I hold her fate, hopes and dreams, just as I hold her, in the palm of my hand.