On to the Next

Home.

It smelled different and yet exactly the same. Large, compared to the other houses around this part of town. A size my mother could be proud of, brag to her 'friends' about and lord over the other ladies at church.

I had taken the long way to get here, the walk over helped cool my head some and with the once boiling rage now a bubbling simmer, I felt I could think clearly. Decide what I am to do with these people who brought me into this world without my consent, and thought their part in my creation was reason enough to take my life away.

I always knew my mother was a lost cause, I'd thought the fact that she too is a woman would be enough for her to side with me, her only child. I was wrong of course, but her betrayal had been the expected one. My father on the other hand was everything to me.

My protected and my friend, the man I compared all others to and found them wanting.

His was the betrayal that cut the deepest, from his wounds have I bleed the most. The rage burned bright at the thought of him standing there rope in hand and silver lining his eyes and pain in he's every expression.

He did not get be sad, to feel pain but still kill me. For what? For who? I couldn't understand why he was there, why he sided with that horrible man.

The house was quiet, for this time of night. Usually my father would still be up reading in the drawing room with mother prattling on about her day or heading out for a late patrol through the town before returning to bed. But not this night.

No, the was only the soft breathing of deep sleep from upstairs and the shallow gasps of our housekeeper weeping silently-she must be getting soft in her old age-and the slow swing of something heavy through the air.

Swish. Swish.

Had someone left a window open, it was coming from our small library, my favourite room in the whole house. Or maybe father had finally managed to fix the grandfather clock that had been sitting in the room for as long as I can remember. I decided on see the library one last time before the slaughter continued.

Perhaps I'd even keep my favourite book of poems, a reminder of where I'd come from and what had been done to me by the people I thought I could trust, by the people who said they loved me.

I now knew I would like a very long life, but I wanted to keep this lesson of human cruelty til the end of it.