my un titled short story

Tears of anger began to cloud her eyes as she looked up at the computer screen. Her hands shook, her stomach hurt. She wanted to jump up and run to her bed. She wanted to hide under the covers until all her demons were buried under a six foot pile of comfy pink comforters. Instead she continued typing. She knew she couldn’t stop now, not when she was almost finished. It did not matter how much it hurt to remember. She would continue. Once everything was out, she knew she would feel much better. She just had to manage to get it all out first.

She had gotten the idea of writing about her troubles from her counselor. At first she hadn’t wanted to go see a shrink. Talking about her “troubles” made her feel ridiculous. It made her feel like, well like a wuss. Besides, her troubles weren’t that big were they? Of course, there were other children out there with lives much harder than her own. There were Children who didn’t just have demons from the past to burry, but demons that were still destroying them in the present.  But, she had agreed to attend counseling sessions to make her mother happy, and soon came to find that she actually kind of liked it. Then, before she had left last session, her councilor had made a suggestion. That maybe writing down some of her life would help her get over it.

So she had set off to write, a cup of coffee and a donut on her right side, her computer before her, with no intention to stop writing until she had her entire life typed up on that big flat screen. Now she wished she could stop writing, stop remembering. Her head hurt and her mind was weary. But she had come to the point that if she stopped now, she knew fear of remembering again would never let her pick it back up. There were no brakes for her.

………I could feel it. His hands were snaking around my neck. Fear began to coil in the pit of my stomach. His fingers were a vice grip, slowly squeezing the life out of me. I tried to escape, run away, do something, anything! But I found that none of my limbs would function. I couldn’t draw a breath, his fingers were too tight. He was crushing my windpipe. My breath was leaving my body in a rush of pain and death. I was going to die tonight, my father was killing me. And I was unable even to struggle. My vision was becoming blurry; my entire body was becoming numb. Everything I saw seemed to have a ring of black and red around its edges.

I think at that point I heard a scream behind me, but my brain was too foggy to identify who it was. whatever the reason though, it was at that point that my father let go of my neck, and turned his attention to whoever was standing in the doorway. I collapsed on the ground, panting for air. Every second was bringing me back to life, bringing back my senses. Feeling returned to my arms, my legs, and then my whole body. I began to breathe easier. My vision became less blurred, and was returning in full each second that passed. I could finally see who was in the doorway; it was my mother, with my intoxicated father standing over her. His veins seemed to pop out of his arms, and I could see all of the little dots on his arms where he had shot himself up. What drugs he was using I didn’t know. I think that night he might have been high, but I couldn’t be sure.

I watched as his hand traveled towards her, I saw it all as if in slow motion. I heard her scream of fear. I watched as he reached out towards her, intent upon killing her as well. There was a mad glint in his eyes; it seemed to make them more colorful. Almost appealing. We were both dead I knew that the minute he first came into the room, yelling and screaming. Interrupting my reading, telling me that my mother was a whore, and that I was going to turn out exactly like her if I didn’t grow up. Now that I think back I wish that I hadn’t mouthed off to him. I should have kept my mouth shut. Now I was going to have to sit here, and watch as he killed my mother and turned to me next.

But I wasn’t one to go out without a fight

I stood up and began slowly walking towards them. My father had not yet noticed that I was approaching, but I could see my mothers eyes flicker towards me. She smiled at my just a little and nodded her head towards the bookshelf. That’s when I remembered what she had hidden there. Just for an occasion like this one.

Quickly I changed my path, walking as quickly and as quietly as I could towards the bookshelf. I could still hear my mother screaming. I was terrified that any second my father would turn around and notice that I was moving.

I reached the bookshelf with no problem. Behind the third book on the right, I found it. my daddy’s gun, the one my mom had stolen from him two nights ago, when he had last come home drunk off his ass and beat my mother and I both senseless. That had been a painful night. Sitting and watching as my beloved daddy, the man I thought would never ever hurt me; beat the shit out of my mother. Then turned on me, and beat me too. There had been the same mad glint in eyes then, I remember crying and crying. And the harder I cried the harder he hit, screaming something about tears not being allowed in this house. I hadn’t even been able to get a word out, hadn’t even been able to ask why the hell he was doing this. All I had been able to do was try and cover my face as blow after blow rained down on me.

My hand touched the gun. I wrapped my fingers around it and pulled it out. I had to continuously remind myself that my daddy deserved this, for beating my mom, for hurting me. Had to tell myself he wasn’t the same daddy that he had been, he didn’t really care about us, he didn’t really love us. A tear leaked out of my eyes as I turned and faced my dad, gun cocked and held before me. I had to fight to remember how my mother had told me to hold it. Lucky for me my dad was still too preoccupied with my mother, he had his fist dug into her hair; her head was twisted around facing me. He had his back to me. It looked as though he was about to rape her. She still hadn’t stopped screaming. I began laughing. It was a crazy laugh, but it drew his attention away from her and to me. He let go of her, and turned around to look at me. She crawled away. That was my chance, I pulled the trigger.

Her fingers froze over the keyboard. She remembered that night so very well. Remembered the pain, the fear, and hatred, with crystal clarity. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, tears were leaking from her eyes freely now. Though she wasn’t crying from the pain of it all, she was crying because above all else, she had hated her father enough at that moment that she had actually enjoyed killing him.

……I watched my father fall. My bullet had hit him square in the face. He was dead and I knew it. Still I couldn’t help the terror crawling up the back of my throat. Terror that he would stand up and begin beating on my mother and I once again. Terror at the fact that…though it hurt me to kill him, I felt no regret, no true sorrow, and no true loss. A part of me was actually glad of his death. Another part of me was full of this giddy sort of energy. I had just killed a man and gotten away with it. The feeling was thrilling. My body screamed that it wanted more, I had control, and I had power. But the most dominant feeling of all was a sense that I had done good. I had Just purged the earth of some evil.

I hate to admit this now, but I think, to an extent, it actually felt good to kill my father….I remember after shooting him, after I was sure he wouldn’t get back up, falling down on the floor and laughing. I just laughed and laughed and laughed. Tears streaked from my eyes. My breath was coming in short. My ribs began to hurt. But I couldn’t stop laughing. Till the laughter turned to tears. Tears I couldn’t quench. I sat there and cried. For the pain, for the anger, and finally for the release from it all. I had just won my freedom, even if I hated the cost of it.

The only last coherent thought I can remember having before the police showed up was “what a great way to spend your thirteenth birthday”…