Okies, we're gonna try this again.

I have to apologize, I attempted to run an interactive story before, where people could join in and post there own feelings and thoughts. However, I became sick and haven't been able to get back to Pixie's until today.

But, here I am, and we're gonna try this again!
^_^


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The mid-afternoon heat was oppresive; the air was laden with well over a hundred percent humidity, and with the sun lambasting the earth, the heat rose like a stifling blanket, the moisture turning it into liquid soup that hurt the lungs to inhale.

Mayumi barely noticed, her bare feet sullenly gliding along the length of the dirt road.

The year was 1965, and the biggest thing in the Phillipine Islands was the American occupation. It had been, ever since they had ousted the Spanish. Their presence drove not only the wheels of their primitive, corrupt government, but their military utilized the string of tiny islands as a major airbase, and the soldiers, government officials, and all their families and the other Americans who came with such a huge, massive outpost fueled an economy that was always struggling.

While only nineteen, Mayumi was old enough to understand what the presence of the soldiers at Clark Airforce Base meant to at least her little community. She had spent the past few years peddling the various wares of her family at the chain link fences, and standing with other such young girls around the beige booths that held a handful of men that guarded and watched the moving gates that the military and their family moved through.

Most of the young girls had stood there, scantily clad, awating some young brazen American GI to take their hand and walk to one of their tiny shanties with them.

Mayumi had stood there with her huge basket, the thickly wound coconuit rope hanging it from her aching neck, and called to any of the Americans who walked by, selling her fathers length of raw sugar cane and freshly dropped coconuts. Sometimes she had fish as well, those that the eldest of her four little brothers and sisters had managed to catch in the murky, languid stream near their house. She always had rolled up mats of dyed coconut hair that had been braided and twisted into elaborate rugs - her own unending work at home. Her youngest brother and sister, only six and seven years old, worked hard each day to carve and build the small, simple toys that the American children loved to buy.

And thus it was that the young girl had helped her father raise his children, for almost six years now since her mother had died, and tried to bring some rice and pesos home each night.

She had used the rice to feed her family - her father had used the pesos to drink the raw sugar cane alochol until it literally rotted his teeth away and turned his breath bittersweet.

Confused and dazed, Mayumi dropped her weary form to a roughly hewn plank bench in the tiny park that occupied the little town's square. She idly brushed the thick, curly strands of hair that slid across her shoulders behind her and settled, eyes unseeing, in the minimal shade cast by the tiny tree next to the bench.

She had worked hard to take care of her family - she had loved each of those skinny, chestnut brown little bodies as if they were her own children. She had despised her father for as long as she could remember, the way he used them all, yelled at them - all too often beating them simply for lack of anything else to do with his time. She had tried to protect them, and her body bore the many scars of cane and bamboo lengths taken to her golden hide. But when her tatay had approached her, his eyes glazed with drink and his hands not heavy but grasping and caressing, she had flown out the door and down the dirt path, her limber young body taking her into the outskirts of Mabalacat easily.

She shuddered again, suddenly seeking the overwhelming heat of the bench and the sun as cold shudders once again ran through her small frame. She couldn't go back - she could never go back to that...

A figure sat beside her, and she looked up in surprise.

"Purit? Comoustas ," she said in greeting to the petite, voloptuous figure that had sat next to her. The girl had dark, chestnut skin, and even darker, almost black eyes. They were delicately slanted in the manner of her people, her nose flat, but her hair fell in a dark, straight, shiny mass to almost her knees. The young girl grinned and patted Mayumi's hand.

"Comoustas, Mayumi," she returned the native greeting. Unlike Purit, Mayumi was a mestiza - a half-breed, her mother the last of the purebred Spanish families left in the area. Her own skin was almost white in comparison to her friend's, her hair was long and thick, but it had a tendency to wave and curl, and was dark brown streaked with lighter brown, red, and even blonde highlights brought from the sun. Her eyes were tilted at the corners, like Purit's, but were a deep, dark green that she had never beheld, for her house was without mirror's or any real reflective metal surfaces. Purit was less than five feet tall, yet graced with a large bosom, tiny waist, and flaring hips. Mayumi's body was only a handsbreath taller, and while she had curves of chest and hip, they seemed only a hint next to her friend's ripe, lush body.

"Where is your basket, your wares today?" she asked softly, her eyes turning towards the broad dirt road that lead towards one of the gates for Clark. Already, the soldiers were easing in and out of them, and the crowd of girls before them was growing.

Mayumi simply shook her head and took a deep, gasping breath.

"No more, Purit - I can't do it anymore," she whispered softly. Purit simply nodded knowingly and wrapped an arm around Mayumi's shoulders, then tugged her upwards. The two made their way into the dim hut that housed the bar Purit worked in, and led to her shanty in the back. Purit was one of the girls who remained near the building - waiting for soldiers to come to her. Even now, a handful of the young, boisterous men entered the dwelling, set on stilts above the often flooded ground, and headed for the long, glistening bar. Purit guided Mayumi to a corner table and sat her down, then patted her hand.

"Wait here - I will have Sonia cook you something, ok?" she gave Mayumi a comforting smile and moved off, first heading towards the bar to serve the smiling young American soldiers before disappearing behind the thin coconut hair curtain and into the kitchen.

Mayumi's stomach rumbled noisily, the knots of hunger in it causing her to drop one hand and rub it gently. At least this meal she would not have to work for, she though wearily.