The Internet is ablaze today after a series of tweets (150, to be exact) from a woman named Aziah King (@_zolarmoon) depicting a last-minute weekend getaway to Tampa, Florida that quickly became a bonafide descent into Hell.Her recounting of the journey is PEAK TWITTER the whole way through.
"Zola," as she refers to herself in the story, has since deleted the sprawling posts, but, of course, they live on in the afterlife of Storify and and screencamp.
It begins with our heroine meeting a young woman (Jess) and her male friend while working a shift at Hooters in Detroit. Zola, who works as a stripper, gets to talking with fellow exotic dancer, Jess, and gradually realizes that she is also a prostitute, and the gentleman accompanying her is (one) of her pimps.
After Jess convinces Zola to come away with her and her emotionally unstable boyfriend, Jarrett (oh god, Jarrett!) on a weekend excursion of stripping in the twinkling metropolis of Tampa, the fever dream begins.It doesn't take Zola long to realize that Jess "low key set her up" to be part of her tricking quest; Zola decides to make the best of this Floridian nightmare by exploiting Jess herself, working in tandem with a mysterious and terrifying dread-locked pimp lord, simply referred to as "Z."
Violence and betrayal ensues.
Jarrett, CONTINUOUSLY devastated from discovering the true occupation of the woman he loves, over and over and over (and over) again, unsuccessfully attempts to end his pain by leaping off a Z's condo balcony (his pants get stuck on the railing, and he lives, much to the amusement of Zola.)
The most absurd reaction of this suicide attempt comes from villainous, Z.
Its climactic twist ending (which I will not spoil), reads like a cross between the finales of Spring Breakers and Taxi Driver.Informal prose aside, Aziah's account is perfectly structured, with vivid descriptions, dialogue, and character development.
It's still to be confirmed if Zola's Odyssey is authentic or not.
If it is, in fact, real, she's going to need a soooooooolid attorney, or as Jezebel says "a spot in the witness protection program."
Regardless of truth, and the fantastically casual and undeniably endearing way Zola relays it to us, this tale is a somber one.
The bleakness of this universe that so many women are forced to live in, painted with excruciating minutia, should be read by all as a serious reality check.
Viva la Zola. Now we await the inevitable book/movie deal. In the meantime, read the story in its entirety here.
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It's still to be confirmed if Zola's Odyssey is authentic or not.
If it is, in fact, real, she's going to need a soooooooolid attorney, or as Jezebel says "a spot in the witness protection program."
Regardless of truth, and the fantastically casual and undeniably endearing way Zola relays it to us, this tale is a somber one.
The bleakness of this universe that so many women are forced to live in, painted with excruciating minutia, should be read by all as a serious reality check.
Viva la Zola. Now we await the inevitable book/movie deal. In the meantime, read the story in its entirety here.
