He said to me, "to live another day, you must pay the price decided by the master."
I did not know who the master was because he always wore a mask. I assumed the person was a man. I continued to live in a male dominated world and deep down I was okay with this because he was one of my own. He was my brother. I sought security in his power, the economic growth in our family preservation.
Women operated on a different level and because of this, they had higher pitched voices and jumped around more. By the time the master spoke again, he had entered through the doorway connecting the two rooms.
I accepted there was a heavy price to pay. I did not know how heavy it would be, but I knew I would have to reckoned with somehow. My forehead was sweaty as I kneeled and kissed the shoes of the master. I had never crossed the line set by him since he had come into power. At that moment, right after I kissed his shoes, I wished I had been born a female. They had a lesser kind of punishment when they committed a wrong act.
During this thought process, my mother appeared from the crowd and stood in front of me as if to protect me. She was not there to protect me. She was there to protect herself. I had shamed her. She was inches from the master and leaned into him, whispering something to him.
He nodded and glanced at me. His eyes turned a darker blue like the deep ocean waves. He moved his arm and produced a shiny stone from under his robe. He tossed it into the air, bounced off the floor, and rolled into obscurity.
I was instructed to retrieve it. I picked up the broken pieces and held them in my palm.
How could it have broken? A stone? A hard stone? I asked all three questions.
The pieces shifted around and formed back into solid stone.
Was this seriously the price I had to pay? I asked.
The master laughed and asked me, "how long did it take you to find and put the stone back together from start to finish?"
"I didn't put it back together. It did it by itself."
The master dismissed me with his hand. I thought this exaggeration was part of the lesson. I told him "No more than three to five seconds."
"That's two answers."
"Okay, three seconds."
"Is that your final answer?"
It is better to err on the side of caution, so I changed my answer to five.
The master showed no emotion through the eye holes of his mask.
I was stunned to hear the price I was forced to pay for my mistake. I watched as the crowd left in a single file line with the last to leave being my mother and the master. I felt the stone on my palm, but when I looked down, it had disappeared. I had no idea where it went. This did not matter. All I could think about was if three extra years really make a difference to my life. Probably not much but two additional years had heightened the stakes.
My life had turned upside down and had to make another life changing decision of whether to accept this new fate or try to outsmart the unidentified master.
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