I woke up that morning and fought the thrumming onslaught against my heart. Again. Little guilt soldiers marching along the dark, bloody recess palpitating every few seconds to keep my body alive. To keep the pain alive.
I pushed off the thin blanket draped over my half dressed body, heat radiating off the wooden floors and soft blue walls of my cozy bedroom. Home. It was only the third night back in this enclosed space and already the feeling of home was dissipating – as though the walls themselves were sucking back the sentiment they once felt for me. Their innocent blue eyed boy. Little Pan the lost boy.
Oh how lost I was at that moment.
I gravitate towards the cylindrical JBL bluetooth speaker standing upright on my dresser; sleep and remorse wrestle for dominance with each unhurried step I take. I flick on the device and the soft pacifying voice of Chris Martin permeates the silent house.
Yellow.
It was all yellow.
I take the speaker with me, pushing through my bedroom door and immediately, unconsciously, step over the leg strewn haphazardly in the passageway. The smell is cloying. Suffocating. Soothing. The rest of the body is angled behind the door and acts as a doorstop. I tread across the warm carpet, my foot squelching slightly but I barely notice. Only Chris Martin and I exist.
And guilt.
It’s all yellow.
The bathroom is dark when I enter, the window barricaded by a large bulking figure drooping lifelessly from the bar. A quick fumbling across the wall reveals the bump of the light switch but I hesitate before I click it on. Not because of the man on the window, but rather in fear of the mirror right beside him that reflects my silhouette.
The music continues.
The guilt continues.
I flick the switch and nothing happens. Only then I realize I have been holding my breath and I let it go with a long drawn out sigh. Relief. I do not want to see what I have become since the incident. The invasion of privacy to the sacred enclosure that is my bedroom. The violation.
Since the bottled rage quivered first through the lower region where my heart resides, then up, up, up into the front half of my brain, then through my entire nervous system like blood through the veins. Down to my hand clutching the pocket knife on the desk. To the fingers squeezing the black plastic handle.
To the rage throwing the chair back.
The stalking to the trembling figure.
The first plunge.
The first maternal scream.
The first spurt of thick crimson fluid splashing across my face. Against my bared teeth. The sound of footsteps as paternal anguish lunged from across the hallway. The struggle in the hallway where my skull connected with the wall, rattling my teeth. The surge of strength from the pain, fear and anger. The grunt as a knee connected with the soft gut, the ease by which the steel tipped edge plunged into the thick neck. The weight of the slumped body against my shoulder, the ease by which I was able to carry it to the bathroom and hang it through the burglar bars. Later I will put up something to hide it from the outside world. For now…
Elation.
Fear.
Relief.
Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.
Yellow.
It was all yellow.
Writing prompt courtesy of Rachel Poli: http://rachelpoli.com/2016/02/26/time-to-write-sentence-starter-7/
I fear anger and what we could do in that state of mind. What is your biggest emotional fear?