.The Sad Story of Oppression.

I kind of like how crazy this one turned out..**

She was going to do it tonight. She was going to end it and she was going to feel good about it. Years of suppressed emotions where going to burst out in one big bang. No more being trodden on, no more abuse, she was finally going to be free. Yes, she was going to end it tonight.

Looking at herself in the mirror she picked up the gun and smiled, her white teeth gleaming eerily in the dimly lit room. Tapping her broken tooth with the barrel of the revolver, she smiled and spoke in a sultry voice, “Don’t worry my sweet, you shall be avenged tonight. She hurt you didn’t she? Threw me on the floor..” she giggled, not the sweet innocent giggle of a child, but the harsh chuckle of one who never knew true laughter. “We all know she doesn’t care about me, but she should’ve cared about you. She should have known I would make her pay.. you after all were my favourite. I told her, I said she had to find you but she didn’t.. sealed her own faith that bitch did..”

She trailed the weapon up to her deformed ear, “and you my lovely.. ripped my pearls right off you didn’t she?” and then down to her stomach, where several deep scars could be seen, “I shall avenge you all, my babies.”

She felt not a second of hesitation, for she had been living a tormented half-life for so long that it was impossible for her to see straight. “Driven to the edge, yet not strong enough to jump.. that’s what she says doesn’t she? Ha! Well, dear mother, lets see about that.”

At first she used to cry. At first each hit, each blow made her shiver. Each bloody eye and broken knuckle would have her weeping, tormented for days. Why me? Why does she hate me so? She would ask herself, unable to comprehend that her own mother didn’t love her at all. And so, at first she would take it, she would take each hit as a punishment for some unspoken evil that she had done, and she would try to please her mother even more. But, 15 years down the line, at a ripe age of 24, you could hardly expect her to still crave the affection of her sadistic mother.

No, the kind words and mother’s day cards had stopped long ago, yet she was still not strong enough to leave her side. Until now. They say everyone has a breaking point, a point where you just snap, and hers was here. Yet no one talks about what happens before; the pain, the agony, the suffering, and the suicide attempts.

Of course there had been suicide attempts. In fact there had been many, but each time the weapon of choice- be it a razor, a gun or a rope- had never gotten its sweet taste of blood. Each time her mother had stopped her with her sinister laugh and malicious words, “Ha! Going to kill yourself? You don’t have the guts. You can’t hurt yourself you’re too weak, my child.. too weak to hurt anybody, too useless.. and anyways, do you think God would want you? I don’t even want you! Why would he, a worthless thing like you. You know where you’ll end up? Down below that’s where.” It doesn’t matter that the woman was usually drunk when she said it.

My child. When her mother spoke it she made sure her strong loathing of what those words meant came across.

Once upon a time she had been a pretty girl, with green eyes and blonde hair. Now one would never associate any kind of beauty with her. She was beyond scarred, she was permanently disfigured; emotionally and physically. Irreparably damaged goods. Burns from scalding water had caused her face to be stretched uncomfortably, and on top of her white skin were marks of red and black. It was as if each blow was designed to decorate the canvas of her face. She had once deeply felt the loss of beauty, but no more. Now she would look in the mirror and hardly see her face, she had learned to ignore it. It didn’t matter anyway, because try as she might, she was unable to remember what she had looked like those many years ago, and there was not a picture in the depressing hole that was her home, to remind her of it.

Previously, she had been a smart girl, a girl full of wits and intelligence, but now her mind had corroded and all that was left were the psychotic wonderings of a repressed soul. The smartness had melted into sweet insanity, and the dreams had withered and died, all that was left now was the thirst for revenge fuelled by hate; pure, undiluted hate.

She remembered the first time her mother had come home and hit her. Mother’s newest boyfriend, if he could be called that, had just left, and the woman, as usual had drowned her sorrows in drugs and alcohol. But this night was different. This night when she came home, instead of welcoming her daughter’s help to get her into bed, she pushed her away. Mother pushed her so hard that she hit her head on the wall, and when she raised up her 9-year-old hand to press against the area of contact, it came away covered by a thick red liquid. As her eyes filled with fresh tears, her mother’s turned dark and cold. She had never been a particularly loving or attentive parent, but she had never been abusive either. Until that cold winter’s night when she came home from the bar, accidently threw her daughter across the room and felt nothing but satisfaction; for once she was the oppressor; the punisher, not the punished.

She remembered all this as she polished the gun with a cloth. “Oh yes mother liked it didn’t she? Liked feeling she was on top.. But my child,” she said, kissing the gun, “I’m sure she’ll like you even better.”

Getting up slowly she walked to the window and pulled the gun up to the glass. “Gleaming like a gem,” her eyes brightened in happiness, “I do believe you’re ready!”

Opening the door of the basement, she climbed the stairs to the living room. She stood in the doorway for a second, watching her mother’s sleeping form; even during rest she looked uneasy. Good. Walking over to her, she sat on the foot rest across her mother’s old tattered sofa. Had her mother loved her they might not be here, had she stood up to her mother she might have had a better life, but she was beyond thinking about what-ifs. She was beyond thinking about her life, if you could call it a life at all. She was the shell of the person she could have been, but who the fuck cared anyways? Not me, she thought, as she smiled a smile so cold that it almost matched the ones her mother plastered on her face everyday. Life is a bullet baby, pull the trigger and watch it fly! she thought, a wicked gleam in her eyes.

Suddenly, she looked up, catching the reflection of her face in the mirror behind the sofa. My beautiful face.. her eyes became hard and distant. Leaning over her mother, she whispered, “I have guts mother. I shall be free.” Ever so slowly she leaned closer, until they were at eye-level, and then blew on her sleeping mother’s face.

The woman’s eyes opened instantly. Staring at her daughter for a moment a sad, knowing smile crossed her face. A smile so sad that any sane person would have had second thoughts about pulling the trigger, “Broken at last, my-”

But she wasn’t sane.

****

The next day the newspaper headlines would read: The Sad Story of Oppression- Oppressor and oppressed both found dead; a tale of murder and suicide.