carmella fantain . district six | cb

I am the clear voice of logic in a storm of chaos. Devery is drama and turmoil, recklessness and impulse. She is the storm, anarchic and full of pandemonium, but I am its eye, calm and collected. I clean up her messes, all the broken glass she leaves in her trail.

We were born here, in a brothel at the end of a darkly lit street. My sisters' and I should have been orphans, left alone to fend for ourselves, but the workers in the brothels took our mother's place when she died. She was one of them — a prostitute — but she died in childbirth, giving herself for the three of us to live. One of my adopted mothers told me that she was willing to die so that my sisters and I could be born. Sometimes I wonder how someone could be so selfless; I know I could never be like that.

The women of the brothel never allowed us to work like them. "Be something else," they instructed us. "Do something with your life, just — don't end up like us." I took their advice; I always heed warnings when I'm given them. I know better; my sisters don't. Devery will flirt with some of the men, the younger, more handsome ones who come by. But men were never my forte, and the thought of kissing one of them makes my stomach turn in disgust.

They say we look like her, like Mom, with our button noses and fair hair and pale eyes. She didn't deserve to end up as a prostitute, they told us. But sometimes people get what they don't deserve, a part of life, I suppose.

It's something I try not to dwell on too deeply.