Lives and Death – Introduction
I was born in a brothel. Brothel is the word for it. It wasn’t so pretentious as to be called a bordello or house of ill-repute. They weren’t whores though. We were a family. When my mother died in childbirth, they took it upon themselves to raise me. I cried in their arms (rarely), suckled at their breasts, and slept in their beds, a different one almost every night. I grew up happy, surrounded by love – or something like it. After a while, I died. A sixteen year old virgin, stone digging into my back, cloth covering my eyes, and oblivion onrushing. A year older, I woke up. I was muzzy-headed, and the morning sun was fierce through the window of… whoever’s room I was in. I was nearing a man’s age now, but …