Bondage

She felt the wind whipping through her hair, and she felt free for the first time in a long time.

She had yearned for this kind of freedom for so long…seventeen years, to be exact.  That was the duration of her marriage, the duration of her bondage to that horrible man.  He was sweet and charming when she met him, and she had instantly fallen in love with him.  They had decided to marry each other in a whirlwind courtship, and soon it was final.  She went from Ms. to Mrs. just two months after meeting him.

He was sweet for a little while even after they got married.  But then he got laid off from the factory, and there was very little else that he knew how to do.  So she took on a second job, then a third.

And then a fourth.

Then, things began to get worse.  He would sit around at home all day, watching television and drinking.  His boredom would soon descend into anger and bitterness, and he would wait till she got home to unleash it on her.  She had lost the number of times she had fallen asleep 0n the bathroom floor, whimpering and bleeding from a cut he had opened up on her face, or her arm, on her back.  Then, something even worse happened.  Something that cemented her bondage.

She got pregnant.

And delivered a mentally underdeveloped child.

The doctors told her that her baby had only a few years to live.  And she was determined to give him the best few years possible.  But his father blamed her for giving him, as he called his son, ‘a blockhead’

Anyone else would have left him a long time ago.  But she had always been told that she had to try and work her marriage out, no matter what.  And she couldn’t let her son die without having his father around.

But then he began to get suspicious of her.  He thought she was having affairs.  Once, he beat her for three hours because she said a sports announcer was handsome.  He began hanging around outside her workplaces, swearing at any customers who lingered to talk to her.  She got fired from six jobs because of him.

And then, a week ago, her son died.

He nearly smashed her head in that night.  She hadn’t been able to walk for three days after that beating.  Then one day, she walked up to the roof of their apartment building and looked at the stars.  Her baby was somewhere up there.

The wind grew louder, now practically howling in her ears.  She spread her arms out, and closed her eyes.

She was free now.

And then she hit the ground.

~ by slayergrey on July 5, 2009.