Best Foot Forward

Right foot forward.

“I’m standing here on the roof of my building.  I think I’m going to kill myself.  I don’t know why or how or when I made this decision…but I did.  Life just isn’t worth living anymore.”

Left foot forward.

“One of my closest friends killed herself because of me.  Do you know what that’s like, knowing that someone’s dead because of something that you did?  Knowingly, unknowingly…doesn’t matter.  She’s gone, and she’s never coming back.  And it’s because of me…”

Right foot forward.

“Parents.  It’s really messed up when they act like children.  It really messes with your head when you hear them acting like that, and saying things like that.  Having to come home to that every single day really fucks you up inside…”

Left foot forward.

“My best friend died two nights ago.  Stomach cancer, they said.  Fuck, I said.  There was nothing they could do…they simply found out about it too late.  Why’d this happen to her?  She was such a good person…’was’.  Damn, I’m referring to her in the past tense.  I can’t believe I’m actually talking about her in the past tense.  I can’t believe she’s really gone.”

Right foot forward.

“And then there’s the other thing.  The thing that I can’t even talk about.  The thing that kept me up for so many nights, because I was afraid to shut my eyes.  Shadows on my walls turned into something else, and noises would make me jump.  Closing my eyes meant letting my morbid mind take control…take up the reins.  And if that happened, I’d surely go mad…”

Left foot forward.

“Hmmmm…the roof ends here.  One more step, and that’ll be it.  It’ll be so easy…just raise your right foot, and place it forward.  Step forward into thin air, and you’ll find true freedom.  Sail forward to oblivion, my friend…and it’ll all be over.”

“Stars are out tonight…shapes in the stars.  Damn, that one looks like….and she’s saying something.  What’s that?  I can’t hear you…speak up!”

“Yes, I know things will get better…doesn’t stop me from feeling like crap NOW, does it?  Oh come on, you know that’s not true…how do you know that?  How do you know that that’s what’ll happen?  Yes, I know it’s an extreme step…but the fact of the matter is, I really don’t care anymore.”

“Maybe I should…but that’s beside the point.  I’m never alone?  I have you?  Yes, I know that too…selfish, selfish, selfish.  Yes, I’ve got problems, but so what?  So does everybody else…oh come on, YOU’RE switching sides now?  There’s never a good enough reason to do this, you know?  I know what’s it’s like to stand by and watch someone do it…I’ve stood with a person in their bathroom and held a blade to my wrist as well, threatening to do it if they did.  And there’s no way in hell I’m taking that road.  But then again…forget it, doesn’t matter.  I’m a little tired of talking…I think I’m going to move now.”

Right foot back.

Oh, The Hilarity!

“Some are really, really afterwards Malhar.”

“It is longish.”

“You should never use FeviKwik as a lubricant.”

“The fly sees you coming, does this *holds up middle finger* and says, ‘This fellow’s a real chut*ya!’!!!”

“Some things are preaching the violence.”

“I was footing.”  “What’s footing?”  “It’s like fisting, except with your foot.”  “Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”  Five minutes later-”Wait, what’s fisting?”

“WHORE!!!”

“And you people keep trickling down like water on the window pane…”

“Don’t expect everything to be given on a silver platter like the spoonfeeding…”

“Somewhere in the twelve hundred century…”

“Clayton is God.  Hail Clayton.”

“CHANGE YOUR FACE!”

“In your face.  Scrub, scrub.”

*snaps fingers thrice, and then claps hands together*  “I got it!”

*horizontal pussy on nose*  “Been there, done that!”

“In the relationship, you were the man…and he was the pussy.”

“Your tits are so huge, they’re like watermelons!”

“Shut the f*ck up!”

“Bloody all the cars on the road will skid because of the oil on your head…”

“Don’t get too close to *****, she has lice!  Buchhis you’ll get!”

“Nikhil, why you left girl?  Why you make girl cry?  Why you lying to Shiamak, Nikhil?”

“I don’t like this song…” *keels over unconscious*

“This seat is meant for two people, not eighteen.  Shoo.”

“Have you EVER seen your feet?”

“Are you feeling generous?”

“Why would you refuse to treat me? *starts crying*

“Achha, what happened was…she went there, and saw the thing on the wall, and started crying…wait, no.  Ummm….wait.  Screw that, I want coffee.”

“She’s not wearing a bra!”

“Your watermelon isn’t ripe yet…”

“Shruti, look at all those Uno cards of yours…bloody mor bhi sharmaye.“

“You need to be at least four feet tall to use ‘f*ck’.”

“”She’s hitting on my mushroomhead!  Whore!”

“I bloody spent two thousand bucks on him, and got nothing in return!  Oh wait, I got to see his butt crack…actually, I got less than nothing in return!”

“Maddy, you draw worse than a four-year-old spastic child.”

“Practice…B*tch Ghost is on her way!”

“Did you see that eclipse last night?  Oh wait, that was you…”

“Malyaj is a retard.”  “Maybe it’s because his surname is Mallu…”  “F*ck you.”

“John Gutenberg.”

“Johann (pronounced Joanne) Gutenberg.”

“Ma’am, my attendance….”  *starts crying*

“Our dependency on the media of medium…”

“Our revolution of our television…”

“What’s your problem?  He’s not f*cking you!”

“Not everyone is going to take a knife in their hand and go around people stabbing in their back.”

“Aliens were attacking from the Mercury and the Mars.”

“Hump me!”

“I WANT COFFEE!  I WANT COFFEE!  I WANT COFFEE!”  *reaches the coffee counter*  “I think I’ll have a Frooti.”

“I thought you said that you didn’t have a chicken.”  “I don’t, but I do have a cock.”

“Two and a half inches of penetration?”

“They each will be twelve marks each…”

“You should have ‘clearity’ in your speech.”

“GHANTA!”

“I want boobs, mine are too small.”

“What will happen if you write  cheques on a girl’s boobs?  They’ll bounce!”

*pointing* “YOU’RE A BASTAR*!”

“That motherf*cker f*cked his mother…”

“She’s a rand*…“

“Prateek, have you ever coffeepotted in public?”

“I thought you were a snob on the first day.”  “But it turned out to not be true, na?”  “No!”

“You just stepped on my f*cking ankle!  What is wrong with you?  Why would you do something…ooh, money!”

*to a random stranger*”This is Nikhil.  He likes a guy in our class called Rohan.”

“What is your favourite lip gloss flavour?”  “Dildo”

*in a text message*  “I’m at Grawfered.”

“I’m makeuping.”

“You want to see my boxers?”

“You never tie your laces or what?  You’ll trip over them, fall down the stairs, and DIE!”

“YOU MISSED IT!!!!”

“MY BOYFRIEND LOVES ME!”

“Shruti, lap dance chahiye kya?“

“You’re a dumb bastar* yaar…I’ll change the song” *walks over to the speakers, stares at the iPod for five minutes*  “Help me change the song, na!”

“Throw her out of the window!  Where’s that b*tch?”

“Life is life.”

“Hey, I’m getting smarting, OK?”

 

Conversation With You

She sat at her window, with a cup of coffee in her hand, staring into space.  She grinned as she remembered what someone had told her about staring into space.

“Space sucks.  It has no air, it’s cold, and it’s filled with junk.  Spaceship junk.  And crap from spaceships.  No, actual crap.”

Oh, the smiles were so few and far between these days, that her lips almost hurt when she smiled.  The genuine, face-splitting grins that she was most famous for seemed to have abandoned her when she needed them the most.

“Smile, baboo.  You know that I smile when you smile.”

There, another grin.  But this one was wider than the last.  Maybe she could actually go somewhere with this.  But the memories made her happy and sad at the same time…a song, a street sign, a dish at a restaurant.  They made her smile one moment…and then brought along a barrage of memories that she simply could not block out.

So, in moments like that, she would simply float around in the memories.

Maybe do an occasional backstroke.

“Swim in the ocean of your memories.  Maybe you’ll end up in a happier place…”

She stared down into the dregs of her coffee.  Ah, the coffee…people say that coffee helped them stay awake.  But what do you do when you DON’T want to stay awake?  She was terrified of sleeping pills, and they were out of the question.  But what was the point of coffee when her own hyperactive brain would not allow her to close her eyes?

“Sometimes, you just have to shut out EVERYTHING.  Imagine that your thoughts are clouds, and that your mind is a wall.  When your clouds hit the wall, make it permeable.  Let them pass through.  That’s the only way you’ll find some peace…”

Peace, her old friend.  Darkness, her old friend.  Peace could only be found in the face of another…and when the other was present, her eyes would not close for fear of losing a moment.

For fear of losing a memory.

She stared out of the window, and the rain seemed to change.  It seemed to darken, and stream down in little rivulets.  She had seen this before…little streams of blood running down her legs as a stranger pushed and heaved against her…little morbid tributaries that began at her violation and ended at her shame.  And before she could stop herself, she was transported to another place.

“You tell anyone about us, we’ll come back for you.  And next time, it’ll be worse.”

Worse?  How could anything be worse than that?  She remembered asking herself the question…and then she found out.

“You’re beginning to enjoy this, aren’t you, you little whore?  You deserve no better…keep your head down, or I’ll slit your throat!”

She cleared her throat, and shook her head.  That was not what she was supposed to be going.

“Your mind is a big scary place, and you should not go in there alone.  I worry for you sometimes.”

She had shut herself up after that…put on a mask that had fooled almost everyone.  All except one…even though she never said anything, she knew that that one person knew that something was wrong.  That person knew that although the performance was flawless, there was something amiss.  And on the revelation, she had been shaken, angry and tearful.

“If you don’t tell someone RIGHT NOW, I swear to God, I will.”

So she had told someone…and that someone had reacted exactly as she expected him to.

“Give me three days.  I’ll hunt the bastards down and have their heads on a plate.”

And, as always, he had kept his word.  Three days later, one of her tormentors was out of the city…and two were dead.  And she still didn’t feel any better.  Sure, they would never do it to anyone else, but revenge was supposed to make you feel good, right?

“An eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind.”

Yes, an eye had been taken from her.  And a leg.  And three fingers.  And a large chunk of her soul.

“Whatever happens now, they’ve killed a tiny little part of me.  They’ve throttled that little bit of me, and I can’t ever bring it to life again.”

That’s what they had done.  But did they deserve what had happened to them?

“Is there ever a good enough reason to take a life?”

Noises and Sounds

Ever since he had entered,

All he could hear were the sounds,

There were noises all around him,

And they seemed to be deafening him.

As he opened the door,

The sound of the key turning in the lock,

The sound of the door slamming shut,

The rustling of the bags in his hands.

The click of the light switch,

The hum of the air conditioner,

The thud as he laid his office bag down,

The rustle of his shoelaces as he untied them.

The tin foil crackled,

As he unpacked his dinner,

The microwave beeped, and whirred,

Warming up his food.

The tap seemed to squeak at him,

As he filled up the bathtub,

And the water gushed and splashed,

Making a warm bath.

But then he began to hear more sinister noises,

And suddenly, he was afraid,

There were no more sounds as he sat there,

But he was still being deafened.

He heard the sound of thrusting hips,

And the grunting of a man,

He heard the sound of a heart monitor,

And the drip-drip-drip of an IV.

He heard the voice of his favourite girl,

Telling him he had waited too long,

And he heard himself,

Telling her he would wait.

He heard the sound of silence,

The most deafening sound of all,

Because it was the silence of his family,

As they cut him out of their lives.

But soon after, he heard,

A slightly more comforting sound,

The sound of cold steel,

Sliding smoothly across warm flesh.

He heard the sound of the claret,

Gurgling as it rushed out of his arm,

This sound was silenced by the water,

As he slid into the tub.

He opened his eyes, and exhaled,

And a few bubbles fled to the surface,

Escaping life makes a sound, you know,

It sounds like a bubble popping.

The Hare And The Tortoise

A hare, a hairy one,

Foul was his disposition,

Fast, frantic, furious,

The fastest and finest, he thought he was.

The tortoise was stodgy,

Slow, to the point (when there was one),

Serious, sure, stoic,

The sum of everything that was, well, boring.

Trotting along, the hare tripped,

Over a rock, he thought,

Peering, he saw,

That it was actually a tortoise.

“Hey, mother*ucker,

Can’t you get out of the way?

Don’t park your as* in the middle of the road man,

I’ll shove something up it.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not that quick,

Get out of the way I couldn’t,

But I’m fast in a lot of ways,

MAYBE even faster than you!”

“Ho!” came the exclamation,

And with it, a challenge,

A year later, they would race,

And settle it, once and for all.

They met on the day decided,

With a crowd gathered around,

Some wanted to see one win, others the other lose,

Some were there for lack of something better.

Soon, the gun went off,

And the hare went off,

And the crowd went off,

But the tortoise stayed.

Not due to compulsion, oh no,

Not because he wanted to, either,

He was just so damn slow,

He was beginning to think he should have asked for two years.

The hare raced ahead,

Far, far ahead,

Soon, he began to get a little tired,

So he sat down, to rest.

He was tired because, over the year,

He had let himself go a little,

Around the middle, around the backside,

Around the thighs and legs.

All that beer couldn’t have been good,

All that nicotine was bad for sure,

All that weed, oh my!

Maybe he should’ve trained just a little.

Well, that damned rock was too far behind,

One hit wouldn’t hurt, would it?

He took out a pot stick, and lit it,

And floated away on a cloud.

Meanwhile, the tortoise plodded on,

Slow, steady, sure,

Until the finish was in sight,

Oh, the glorious white tape!

The hare awoke with a start,

And realized he had been dealt bad maal,

He had to kill that f*cking dealer,

But he had to win the race first.

It looked like it was too late,

The turtle was going to win,

But he looked like he would overheat,

So a kind otter poured some water over his head.

The hare came up on the horizon,

But the tortoise was almost there,

He had two steps to go,

When he keeled over and fainted.

With a glint in her eye, the otter grinned,

Some time ago,

She had made a promise,

A promise to the hare.

When his head was between her legs,

And he was doing his thing,

He made her promise, that she would do anything,

To make sure that he won.

She had tipped chloroform all over the tortoise,

And it would evaporate in a minute,

Leaving no traces,

Of her treachery.

She winked at the hare,

As he blew past the finish line,

Oh, what a victory it was,

No one even remembered the unconscious rock.

As he was borne on their shoulders,

The hare knew he had something to do,

He had to thank the otter that night,

And, oh, thank her he would.

Foe And Friend

Bar the door right now,

It’s not too late,

The horse has not bolted yet,

He stands still in the barn.

The messenger of death,

Hovers over your head,

Waiting for a slip,

Waiting for metal to touch skin.

He lurks in the shadows,

Touching the weak and the tired,

His power, boundless,

His patience, infinite.

He will wait forever,

For the mistake comes eventually,

The hollow rod passes through the outer,

And consumes the inner.

He stands with the coins,

The payment for the boatman,

For if you succumb to it,

The ride across the river will be your reward.

Plunger, plastic, mosquito bite,

Rose of blood in the clear cage,

Extended arm, cinched tightly,

And the silver bullet explodes.

But, despair not, for,

The messenger is not alone,

He has a foe, one he fears,

The foe of your foe is your friend.

He waits, with outstretched wings,

With power to save and to heal,

His patience knows no bounds,

His love is infinite.

Foe and friend, together they dwell,

Without them, within you,

Wither you shall, however,

Which shall you choose?

My Mama’s Face

I remember the day,

That my daddy walked out,

He just packed and left,

I remember my mama’s teary eyes.

I remember the day,

That the landlord chucked us onto the street,

No rent, no space, he said,

I remember my mama’s worried face.

I remember the time,

That my brother didn’t come home,

He had been caught in a drive-by,

I remember my mama’s sobbing mouth.

I remember the time,

That I was caught with the drugs,

They told me I could get shut up for a long time,

I remember my mama’s disappointed face.

I remember the day,

That my sister came home pregnant,

She said the daddy didn’t want nothing to do with her,

I remember my mama’s pursed lips.

We’ve had troubles, oh yes,

We’ve had more than our fair share,

But there have been times, good times,

Where I looked at my mama’s face and smiled.

I remember the day,

That I came home with my first paycheque,

It wasn’t much, but still,

I remember my mama’s smiling mouth.

I remember the day,

That my sister came home with her new husband,

He was tall, and he stood by her,

I remember my mama’s sparkling eyes.

And today, as I look down,

Into the crowd and see my mama,

Her smile as she sees my cap and gown,

I see my mama’s proud face.

I always want to see,

A twinkle in her eye, a smile on her lips,

I’ll do all that I can,

That’s how I want to see my mama’s face.

What Goes Around…

He sat patiently in the tall grass, waiting for just the right moment.  All his life, he had been taught that nothing would go right unless he waited for just the right moment.

So he waited.

If he didn’t, it would just fly past him in a blur of spots and stripes.  And then he’d have a fine time chasing the damn thing all over the grassland.  And he needed this.  He needed this badly.  The wife had been harassing him for those damn pearls that she saw in the store, and he had no choice but to give them to her.

Some days, he just wished that she would turn into an animal so that he could put a bullet in her damn head too.  Maybe a leopard or a rhino.

Yeah, that would fetch quite a bit.

He snapped out of his reverie when the cheetah ambled past him.  It was thin and long, all muscle and sinew.  It was covered with beautiful spots, and the tear streaks on it’s face were brilliantly contrasted against it’s yellowish-brown skin.  It was a beautiful animal.

It would look even more beautiful as a rug.

He looked down his sights, and locked the crosshairs over the place where he knew it’s heart was.  He was using a special kind of bullet, one that left tiny entry and exit marks.  Unblemished skin fetched a higher price, you see.  He accounted for the wind, and the curve of the bullet.  With animals like cheetahs, you only got one shot.

But one was all he needed.

He held his breath, and squeezed the trigger.  And a split second later, the animal keeled over onto it’s side.  He ran over to it, and saw that it was still breathing.  He reached into his pocket, and pulled out the syringe.  He stuck it into it’s side, and watched as the life slowly seeped out of it.

He drove his truck right upto it, then used the forklift in the back to hoist it onto the truck bed.

There…that would hold him steady for a while.  A perfect kill, no marks, no imperfections, no problems.

He started his engine and started for home.  He really enjoyed the grasslands…so many animals, so many of them profitable.  But he liked his home more…wooden floors, high ceilings, carpeting, four servants and the works.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t see the rhino lumber into his path.

He saw it at the last moment, and swerved to avoid it.  All he could see was the huge tree that he was heading for.  He was wrestling with the steering wheel, but that seemed to make no difference.

His jeep smashed headfirst into the tree.  He smashed headfirst into the steering wheel.

And then, darkness.

He woke up with his face feeling sticky and the smell of gasoline in the air.  Oh shit, the damn fuel was leaking.  He grabbed his gun and got out of the car, but fell over almost immediately.  He looked down, and saw that his leg was bent at an unnatural angle.

Sh*t.

He dragged himself away from the vehicle, which had started to burn.  It killed him to leave the cheetah in there, but he had no choice.  He got as far away from the jeep as he could, and took out his satellite phone.

It was smashed.

F*CK.

This meant that he was alone.  Completely, utterly, totally alone.  He checked the magazine in his gun.  Four round left.  Oh, sh*t.

Suddenly, the grasslands didn’t seem so beautiful anymore.

He could see the sun setting, and with it came a lot of sounds.  Cicadas chirping, wild hogs grunting, the wind whistling.

And then he heard the sound he feared the most.

It was a wild, untamed yelping.  Yaps, howls and barks came together, signalling that it wasn’t just one animal.  It never was.  They howled, coming ever closer.  The pack would savage anything that was even slightly hurt.  But what scared him the most was their howl.  It sounded like they were laughing at him.

He shivered.

You’re Coming With Me

What’re you staring at? Yeah, I’m talking to you, brown boy. What the f*ck are you looking at? I seem funny to you? Come down here and I’ll bust your face…we’ll see how funny I am then, eh? How about that?

There, that shut you up, didn’t it?

What? I don’t see nothing in your damn cue cards, Doc. We’ve been having this session everyday for the last, what, four years? And I’ve told you that I can’t see anything.

No, I’m not going to give it a shot. No. NO.

I said, no, Doc. Get out of my face before I kick your teeth in.  What was that?  I’ll land myself in trouble?  I’m in the block, D.  I’m in the block for killing someone.  How much more trouble can I land myself in?

How many times are they going to put me in jail?

Don’t they know that the only prison is the prison of the mind, Doc?  As long as I’m free up here, they can put me in any prison they want, and it won’t make no never mind.  Hell, they can tie me up and strap me to my cot too.

Won’t do sh*t.

If I do it this one time, will you promise to leave me alone?  I answer your questions, I look at your damn cards, I do it this one time…then you walk out of the door and never come back.  Deal?

Fine.  Gimme the cards, Doc.

Hmmm…this one’s interesting.  I see my family, Doc.  My Ma and Pa, Trevor, the whole bunch.  We’re at a picnic.  Yeah, I’m there too.  The sun is out, Doc.  We’re sitting at a picnic table and drinking lemonade.

Yeah, I got that from the ink blot.  You got a f*cking problem?

Keep going.

Hitler.  This one has Hitler in it.  He’s standing there and raising his arm, funny little guy.  Weird-ass moustache, uniform and all.  A funny, short, great man.

Next.

That damn nigger.  I can see him as clear as day…well, as clear as night, in this case.  He tried to sneak up on me, the little b*tch.  He was loaded, so he thought he was mighty tough.  Well, I was too…and I let him have it.  Three shots in the chest, and two in the head.  That showed him, eh?  That was cool, wasn’t it, Doc?  Wasn’t it?

No, no, wait.  I want to look at this one some more.  No?

Screw it.

Next.

That little Spic and his gang that tried to screw me in the prison.  I was loaded in here too…a nine inch screw that I sharpened down to a point myself.  Oh, she was a real beauty.  F*ckers tried to come up behind me in the supply room.  I turned around, and that was the last thing three of them saw.

Should I go on?

I got three of them in the eye…and the leader in the gut.  The others ran, but I managed to catch one.  I put that spike in his back four times…none of them enough to kill, but enough to make sure that he doesn’t have a pain-free day the rest of his life.

Yeah, that was a good afternoon.  Productive, even.

Next.

Oh, this one’s the best.  I see you, Doc.  Yeah, you.  I see you, and me, and something else.  It’s not really clear…looks like something small.  Ah, now I see it.

It’s the spike.

And it’s at your throat.

You’re getting me out of here, D.  No two ways about it.  This spike’s gonna stay right at your throat till I’m free.

I’m sick of this hole, Doc.  I’m getting out or I’m going to die trying.

Either way, you’re coming with me.

The Smell

I’ll never forget that day.  Even if I want to, I can’t.  But the funny thing is, I don’t want to forget what happened.  I want to remember…I want to feel the pain.

Because if I don’t, I’ll lose myself completely.

I ran home from school that day, because my mom had promised me chocolate chip cookies.  I knew that those were worth running for.  I turned the bend, and ran full tilt towards my house.  As I neared the house, I tilted my head back and took a deep breath.  I wanted to take in that glorious, chocolaty smell.  And take it in, I did.

But I smelled something else along with it.

At first, I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.  But then, as I got even closer to the house and the smell became stronger, it hit me.

It was the smell of my knee after I fell off my bicycle and scraped it.

It was the smell of my lip after Jimmy, the school bully, had punched me in the face.

It was the smell of my finger after I’d accidentally cut myself with a kitchen knife.

It was the smell of blood.

It hung there, over my house, like the stench of a thousand corpses.  And it scared the hell out of me.  I thought something terrible had happened.  I thought my mum and dad were in trouble.

At least I was half right.

I ran even faster, all thoughts of cookies pushed out of my mind.  I burst in through the front door, calling out for my mother and father.  I was retching at the smell in my house, my eyes were watering and my mind was racing.  What was going on?  What had happened?  What would I do if there was a stranger in my house and he had done something to my parents?

Little did I know that the truth was much, much worse.

I walked into the kitchen, and was greeted by the most horrifying sight that I had ever seen.  There was blood everywhere.  It was splattered on the walls, on the kitchen counter, on the toaster, on the cabinets.  It was everywhere.

It was my mother’s.

She was lying on the floor, barely conscious.  She was whimpering, and that sound nearly drove me crazy.  My mama, the woman who had given me life, was lying on the floor, crying out in pain, anguish and fear.

There was a man standing over her.  He had a meat mallet in his hand, and it was stained with my mother’s blood.  He was panting, and growling.  Growling, like a savage animal.  An animal who was thirsty for blood.

He was my father.

I would never have imagined that he would do something like this.  Sure, he HAD hit my mother a couple of times, but he seemed so sorry about it.  He went for therapy and everything.  Then why was he doing this?

He turned around, and smiled at me.  That really scared me.  This was what he was doing, and he’s still smiling at me?

“Dad, what’re you doing?  Why’re you doing that to Mom?”

“Shove off, kid.  You’ll catch it too if you don’t…”

“No, Dad, stop it.  Please, just stop it…”

I walked towards him, and took hold of his arm.  He shook me off, and turned back towards my mother.  He hit her again, and she cried out.

I ran towards him, and jumped on his back.  He ran backwards, and pinned me between the wall and himself.  He then whipped his head back, smashing his skull into my nose and mouth.  I felt my nose break.  I felt two of my teeth break, and fall into my mouth.  I felt warm blood wash over my chin, and down my throat.

There was that smell again.

He shook me off, and I slid to the floor.  He walked towards my mother again, and raised his arm.

“Bitch…”

I looked around wildly, and found the knife block.  I snatched the butcher’s knife out of it, and ran towards him.  I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t falter.

I cut him straight through the scalp.

It was clear that he was finished when I cut him the first time, but I couldn’t stop.  Somehow, my young mind told me that if I did it over and over, my mother would feel better.

So I kept cutting him.

I stabbed him over and over and over with that knife, until his face was unrecognizable.  I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t think.  All I could see was my mother’s broken body.

Finally, when my arm wouldn’t lift into the air anymore, I dropped the knife.  I crawled towards my mother, and she feebly lifted her arms.  I crawled into them, and she held me.  She held me, and kissed my head.  We both began to cry.

But it was over.  We were both safe.

There, on that bloodstained marble floor, inches from my father’s corpse, my mother and I felt safe.