Winter in May

~12~ The Sisterhood of Moxie

"Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That's their natural and first weapon. She will need her sisterhood." ~ Gloria Marie Steinem

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After have been summarily banished to the living with a Aces for far too long. Where I am forced to wait for the war council to conclude convoke of crazy. But I can still hear the Irish whispering her evil plots and plans into May's innocent soul. With a healthy helping of her old world pearls of wisdom, that quite frankly I find rather unhelpful. Pretty sure at this point, even the Celestial kitchen demons who war with her on the regular are scratching their horns in confusion. As they too try to figure out just what the hell the unholy Irish Antichrist is up to this time?

"I was just telling Aces that the more I get to know you, May Belle? The more I realized that my preconceived notions regarding you were wrong. Not bad, not good ...just wrong."

This is coming from the woman who is always right in her righteousness? Who has never ever been wrong in her whole entire life ...just ask her? Aces seems even more stunned by this revelation of wrongness than I am. If the rapid blinking of his old war-weary eyes is anything to go by?

"I couldn't quite put my finger on it at first, until I saw the two of your together outside. Then it hit me ...you're still a little girl in the eyes of a lot of people May Belle. Your blindness aside, it's your diminutive size. Combined with your overall style of dressing, and your little girls bobby-sox haircut." Irish rocks her crazy crown to the side, trying to feel her way through this new found wrongness thing she has recently revealed.

"Now whether your appearance is your choice or your mothers? And in combination with that sweet little voice of yours? It all practically screams 'I'm a little girl take care of me'. Which makes people not take you seriously as a young lady. One who knows her own mind, and can make her own decisions regarding her own life."

"When I realized that I held these preconceived notions about you? I also realized that it's because you've been playing that game for quite some time, haven't you?" Irish inquires almost innocently.

"Allowing people to be nice to you at their own expense is far easier than trying to convince them that you're your own girl, with her own hopes and dreams. Rather than to constantly have to fight with the life they expect you to have, whether they like it or not. And if I had to make an educated guess, that probably worked well for you, right up until you met that one?"

"Darren doesn't look at things the same way the rest of us do. Probably because he is more off-kilter than most." Irish scowls in consternation at this proclamation. "He comes from a very strange little place in the world. Where the people he knows are very very different than the ones we are used to around here. So he sees the things that the rest of us take for granted. But he also tends to miss all the subtle nuances, that the rest of us all know without thinking about. I'd bet my bottom dollar, he saw right through to you and called you right out."

"Am I wrong, May Belle?" She eyes May, waiting for even more of this so-called wrongness to reveal its ugly head.

"No, you're not wrong, Miss Irish. But you're not quite right either." May slowly shakes her head and sighs. "Not to be disagreeable, but I don't really think you have an idea what it's like to be treated as retarded. To be placed into a special class full of mentally challenged kids and be treated like your handicapped, based on nothing other than the fact that you can't see the sky."

"As far as dreams go?" May smiles demurely. "Most people can't even believe I have actual dreams. So how could I possibly have dreams of my own?"

"Now as far as demanding equality?" She shakes her head sadly. "I spent years trying to do just that. Without understanding the consequences of being the nail that stands up, as you said."