Character in Time

The intensity in her eyes transcends her mere 16 years on this planet. She is looking into the camera that is taking her portrait, but her mind is focused on the atrocities that she has witnessed growing up. As the European photographer takes her picture, she thinks about the day she first saw a European man: the same day that her mother died. During that day, the white men came into their village and savagely started taking the women and putting them into large crates in trucks. She remembers how she ran to hide in the one place she knew would be safe, under the the floor of her house. She sees through the crack of her floor her mother struggling with the white men trying to resist capture. The white men seized her mother and threw her into the large truck. She tries to yell, but she remembers that if she does, she too will be taken away. She stares helplessly as her mother is driven away by these white men. Her mind flashes back to the present, the camera gives off a bright flash, and the white man thanks her for letting him take her picture.