Where was the light?

Her eyes, anchored to the floor. Her fingernails, eaten to the point  redness of her flesh peeks out underneath her pale, flaking skin. She sits in the silence as the police officer balances the laptop on the deck of his legs.Tears begin to flow from my mother’s eyes like an eternal stream of sorrow. Sadness floods the barren room; the walls collapse, confessing a hidden affair that has been lurking under our feet.

The school promised she would be safe.

“All of the student’s laptops are secure and blocked of profanic websites” was the broken oath that cascaded from her principal’s lips.  

The internet is an ocean that embodies a whole world us humans know so little about. So many currents of information pixelated, with so few messages crashing on land; allowing  my sister to sail the web freely. The school was her lighthouse guiding a safe journey through treacherous seas, but the light went dim; without guidance she was left to wander the open seas.

Where was the light?

27 million girls around the globe.

30,000 children at risk in the United States.

Human sharks buying, selling, and exploiting other humans. My sister, just a name on a list of victims; human bait for the scum. Unable to distinguish love from lie she was wrapped in a spiraling mess, forming the tsunami around us.

She should have been monitored by the school.

How could they let her slip by the system.

“14,000 hits” is the data that spun out of the police officer’s mouth.

Suffocating in waves of confusion, my stomach drowns in the reality of the situation. Pure as the water that flows from the holy Ganges, her body is tainted by sin of bottom dwelling creatures.

Where was the light?

Sailing uncharted seas, my sister’s body is chained aboard a slave ship. The middle passage digitized, enabling evil to taint her purity.