What happened in 1967?
"...Yes, Lillian we expect to see more rainy days ahead, that's the whole point of everything I had just described to you." The way the weatherman looks at the dark-haired woman beside him has a little girl who's seated on the floor of the sitting room giggling with amusement sparkling behind her large brown eyes.
"Josh! It's not my fault. I didn't understand what you said..." The weatherman's colleague continues her act of cluelessness. There is no way a reputable news station would hire someone so dumb, her act serves to amuse viewers a lot and increase their station's ratings. But the little girl watching this interaction doesn't know all she's watching is an act. A show the news station has put up to make the news a bit more entertaining.
"I literally said this spring will bring about a lot of rain this week, what's there not to understand?" The weatherman's act of annoyance has the brown-eyed child continuously grinning from ear to ear.
"Zara! Where the hell are you?!" A woman's voice suddenly shakes the house as though lightning had struck it, sending electric volts of fear through this child, shocking the giddiness out of her.
She quickly turns off the television that rests on a plain white wooden table that stands rather proudly in the right corner of the living room. Before Zara gets the chance to leave the sitting room to meet her stepmother, her name is called once more and this time it seems to echo loudly within the house walls.
If Zara wasn't scared before, now she definitely is. Her small heart increasingly beats faster as she runs through the hall that leads to the kitchen where she believes her stepmother's voice is coming from.
"I'm here," She says in between heavy pants the moment her feet step into the kitchen.
"You are testing my patience! If you don't do the dishes then of what use are you? Your father is out there trying to give you a good life with his blood, sweat and tears, and you can't simply do the dishes?" Anyone who sees Mrs Jacobs would roll on the floor in laughter because of how she looks like an angry clown who forgot to wear his wig.
Mr Jacobs had told her countless times to stop shaving her brows off and then drawing a thin line in place of them. "It's horrendous!" he cries out every chance he gets. Her brows weren't the only thing he disliked; her overly bright yellow short-sleeveless dress stops at her mid-thigh. It's the same dress she has on with white knee-high boots, with her white pearl necklace and her black hairdo sitting proudly large on top of her head.
Mr Jacobs fell in love with her for her natural beauty and gentle nature but for some reason, his wife couldn't see herself the way he does despite all his attempts. He has nothing against makeup but when it isn't done moderately it isn't something he can appreciate. Mrs Jacobs continued doing her makeup however she pleased for her husband's cries fell on deaf ears. To Mr Jacobs it is unpleasant and to Zara it makes Mrs Jacobs look like something straight out of a horror movie. In a nutshell, she's too fat to wear this dress.
Mrs Jacobs' anger doesn't help matters today because it just makes her look like a round tomato with arms and legs sprouting out of a yellow stem.
Besides Mr Jacobs, anyone except of course Zara would find Mrs Jacobs' appearance funny. Obviously, there is no way a child her age would find her oppressor amusing regardless of the situation.
No words could leave the child's lips to respond because no proper thought could be formed. How can she think when an elephant of fear sits on her chest weighing her down?
Her silence doesn't help her ease the situation but does the opposite.
"Speak God damn it!" Mrs Jacobs' voice booms and manages to shake the duplex they live in.
"I'm so-sorry, I-I will wa-wa-wash it no-now." The poor child shakes like a palm leaf being blown by the wind.
"So-orry fo-for yo-yourself." A deep scowl is set on Mrs Jacobs' lips as she looks at what she calls a waste of space in disdain. She hates the child with every fibre in her being. Hiding this hatred from her husband gets harder as the years pass by but soon the child would be old enough for boarding school and then good riddance!
"B-B-But I am re-ally s-s-sorry." Tears well up behind Zara's eyes because not only does she fear she might get beaten for this, but she also feels a bitter taste at the back of her throat due to Mrs Jacobs' mockery of her inability to speak properly.
"Can you not speak without stammering? Hmm?! You are lucky I am heading out if it weren't so, well you know what I would do to you, don't you?" Zara nodded her head quickly as her mind replays the countless times she had received a beating with a belt, a tree branch and a slipper.
"You know how much I hate it when you nod your head, use your mouth! You are not a lizard!" She yells at the child who still hasn't stopped trembling.
"Ye-yes mu-mum." Zara manages to say.
"You'll make me late, just do it and make sure you put them where they belong." With that said Mrs Jacobs picks up her black bag, ties her brown trench coat and walks out the kitchen then out the front door leaving a ten-year-old child in the house alone.
Other children, her age would be scared of staying home alone when a storm is brewing, casting a gloomy shadow over the area.
Not this little girl. She would rather stay home alone during a storm than be in the presence of her stepmother.
She quickly gets to work but first, she gets the little wooden stool at the corner of the kitchen on which she climbs to give her a better view of the sink and so she doesn't break any of the plates.
It takes her longer to wash off the grease from one of the pots.
All the while Zara busies herself with the dishes her mind couldn't help but wish she could tell her dad what this woman has been doing to her for the past three years.
She knew she could never tell her father not after the pain she caused her stepmother.
By the time she is done drying the dishes as well as the pots, she places them in the cabinets and drawers where they belong. The raindrops that splatter against the windows serve as a reminder for Zara to close the windows in the house.
On that cue, she rushes to shut the windows in the kitchen and sitting room downstairs and then she runs up the stairs into her parents' room shuts the windows in there and then shuts the windows in her room.
Something at their front step catches her attention just as she's about to close her curtain. She peers through the window trying to make out what is laying on their front door steps.
When she couldn't see what it is clearly, she decides to go down the stairs and looks through one of the narrow long windows that rests on both sides of the door.
It is now that she can see what it is or rather who it is.
Countless times Zara has felt her blood run cold in fear especially when she knows she would get a beating but this time it feels different to the child and she couldn't tell why.
She slowly opens the door that she didn't remember to lock.
Now, that she is standing in front of her unmoving stepmother she couldn't help but feel terror run through her body.
"M-mum?" Her voice is drowned by the heavy rain pouring on her and Mrs Jacobs.
Zara couldn't understand what she is seeing, "why would mum lay on the steps under this rain?" She thought to herself.
She calls out to Mrs Jacobs three more times, each time louder than the last but nothing happens. Zara carefully and slowly begins to approach Mrs Jacobs who's lying face-down on the steps.
When she feels close enough to Mrs Jacobs she bends down and taps on the fat woman's shoulders. Yet, nothing happened.
Zara taps some more and when she still gets no response she turns her taps into shuffles.
Soon, she feels the cold sipping into her body so she tries to turn over Mrs Jacobs, a feat that proved far more difficult than she could imagine.
Zara might not be the smartest child out there but she knew that the right thing to do is to call for help since all her methods to get her stepmother on her feet are fruitless.
With the intent of getting help, she runs into the house and straight to the telephone on top of a stool in the sitting room that her father kept in the house in case of emergencies.
She turns the phone over to look at the paper glued to the back of the phone.
In this paper there are four numbers, one of which belongs to the police, one belongs to her dad and her mum and the last one belongs to her aunty who lives a few miles away.
She decides to call her father.
The line rings but no answer, she dials it once more, but still, her father doesn't pick up the call.
After four more tries and she still couldn't reach her father she decides to call the police because she knew it would take hours before her aunty would be able to get here to help her stepmother get up.
"San Francisco 911, what's the exact location of your emergency?" A woman's voice sounds through the phone.
"Hell-Hello? P-plea-se I need he-help." Zara tries to control her stammers but she couldn't get a grip on them.
"Alright, calm down. Where do you live?" The woman could hear the fear in the child's voice and she couldn't help but hope the child is not in danger.
"W-We live at thirty-five Bu-Bush s-s-treet." Zara manages to say.
"What is your name sweetie?" The woman makes an effort to calm the child.
"Z-Zara."
"Alright, Zara what is the problem?" The woman could still hear Zara's heavy breathing through her headset.
"M-my mum is n-not ge-get-ting up. She is out-outside ly-lying in the rain." As quickly as she can Zara tells the policewoman on the call.
"Is your mum breathing?" The woman asks gently.
"I don't know," Zara says as she wipes her tears, all the while she didn't know when she started crying.
"Don't worry Zara help is on the way, ok? Don't end the call, alright Zara?" The woman waits for her reply. A few seconds pass by, and as each one passes she feels a little bit more anxious.
"Alright." She hears the child's quiet voice and with that, she gets to work.