Girl Who Had Nothing

It had to start here. Yes, here, the orphanage, Louisa was dropped at when she was one day old. The drill was usual. Nobody knew where she came from. Nobody saw who dropped her at the door of St. Patrick's Church. Just that she was wrapped around in a clean white cloth with absolutely no sign or symbol to distinguish it or trace it back to anywhere. Not that the nuns at St. Patrick's did anything to find the kids real parents. For them, the kids dropped at their door were Jesus's gifts to them and they were meant to accept the gift without any question. Only thing was, Louisa was hardly ever treated as a gift. Or for that matter, any kid at St Patrick's for treated as a gift. There were far too many and the nuns had no idea of how to nurture those kids to grow into wholesome individuals who were prepared to face the world. Well to be fair, it was not those nuns' fault in the first place. They were doing what they had been told by nuns before them and they by the ones before them. They belonged to the congregation of All Things Innocent, and for them all human beings were equal, irrespective of their past or future. And so they provided a shelter to these homeless kids, food and clothes, and life to survive. But that didn't mean they were responsible for loving them too. Their love was meant for Jesus and Jesus only. And because he had said all lives should be protected, protecting lives is what they did. Their responsibility started and ended right there.  And that's how Louisa and a group of twenty seven other kids lived and grew up at St. Patrick's under the nurturing of twelve nuns. No, the number of kids was not fixed, but once the kid reached the age of eighteen, they were moved out of St. Patrick's to find out their lives beyond St. Patrick's. Or if they happened to drop of from the face of the earth. Yes, it happened. Don't ask where. Its too early to go in there. So, they number kept changing, albeit very slowly and Louisa grew upto be sixteen years old. Anyways, coming back to present, it was still two years before Louisa had to step out of the orphanage but things got fast forwarded and that's what brings us to here. That night Louisa saw what she shouldn't have and was forced to abandon her home, if it can be called a home, of sixteen years and step out in the big bad world. If she had thought her orphanage was a dark, mean place to be, she was in for a very very rude surprise.