I exercise daily.

As should every aspirational killing machine.

I’ll do what I’m told.

Whatever it is – no matter how dangerous.

I’m motivated by the killing, though – let’s be clear on that.

I like dressmaking, yes, but I’d rather raise a gun.

Are there any heroic dressmakers?

There are bound to be countless heroic seamstresses in the world.

Girls are not meant to think like this.

So they say.

They never ask us what we actually do think – certainly not without telling us first what it is we should be thinking. And if we are not thinking what they have said we should be, then they say our thinking is wrong. If we tell them (men) what we think, they correct our thoughts. Thoughts leave our brains, exit via our mouths, hang in the air, ready to be shot down by their artillery all day long! We say we think a thing and they (men) ignore it or they (still men) say we just don’t fully understand it. Then they expect silence. Or an apology. If neither is forthcoming, they look away. Perhaps they walk out a door. They rewrite the words that come out our mouths by teaching us to edit them inside our brains.

No?

They train us to actually go into our minds and begin to rewrite the words – correct them – before we even think them. It’s clever. There are sanctioned thoughts. There are unsanctioned thoughts. There is sanctioned body hair (your head), unsanctioned body hair (mostly anywhere else). Girls having power is not sanctioned. Until it is. When they need to use it, for example. The Night Witches are proof. Teenage girls have as much courage as any man. They would rarely agree (men). Even if they see us commit acts of complete courage and heroism… they will write it out of their mind immediately. Then, condescend us to fucking hell and back until they feel good about themselves again.

Everyone who is lucky finds out their true calling. I hope I have found mine.

I am slight.

Look innocent as a church mouse.

Not that pretty – so I’m told.

Rummage around in the shop drawer to find a measuring tape.

On a pad there is the word – RETRIBUTION – written in red a hundred times.

There is much space between the lines. I don’t write in full sentences any more. Only single words.

HOPE.

GOD.

DEATH.

ANGELS.

EVIL.

RETRIBUTION.

Tonight, Morag and I will go dancing at the Palais.