Judges

Chapter Twenty Two

February 1988

I see the girl as I open my eyes, and the house is dark. Completely silent, even she does not make a sound. Walking barefoot through the pitch black house, where the only light is a small, flickering candle that she holds.

"The damn power bill again," she says under her breath as she takes another step and stops in front of a now illuminated couch. She sets the candle down gingerly on a holder on a coffee table nearby and rests her head. "I can't even watch TV now."

I wait for a few minutes, watching her lay there with her eyes open, lying oddly on her side to make sure she doesn't aggravate any of the bruises on her back or stomach, or cheek. They are purple in proper light, which they haven't had for a week now.

She hasn't gone to school, even though she is a junior. Seventeen years old, and has missed ten days of school in a row.

I turn to hear footsteps approaching, and the girl quickly sits up and snuffs out the candle.

"Papa?"

"Christina, I told you to go to bed." The voice is slurred, the person is drunk. And angry. "You woke me up with that candle.

A pair of hands appear, holding a now lit match that touches the candle and sets it aflame once more. I watch, they can't see me.

"Go back to bed."

"Papa, please, my bed was ruined last night, remember? You threw weights at it, and crushed the leg. You're drunk again."

"NO! I will not be spoken to like that in my own house." The person moves closer, and I can see his face in the dim light. He used to be very handsome, with his brown hair and green eyes, but he looks unhealthy now, hellish. He has stopped caring.

There is a sound of metal on metal as he leaves then returns with something heavy. A fireplace poker. He brandishes it as his head starts to twitch.

"Papa, please, no. You're drunk, you're tired, you're not thinking straight."

"Christina, I think you need to be taught a lesson."

He lunges and she jumps off the couch, as he swings the poker and knocks into the couch, ripping the fabric and poking into the stuffing.

"Papa!" She screams and her voice echoes in the back of my head. "Papa! Please, no!"

"Stop! Moving!" He staggers and drops the poker into the flame, knocking over the candle and setting the table aflame. The whole room is lit now.

Christina, looking similar to her father Jorge, stands opposite him, behind the couch.

"Papa, it's on fire. Please, calm down."

Jorge drops the poker on the floor and stands up straight, looming over Christina and her small, weak arms. She could never defeat him.

"You don't deserve to live."

A tear runs down Christina's face as he continues.

"Papa, you're just drunk, you don't really mean-"

"You look just like your mother, every day."

"Papa-"

"And what did she do? She left us! Me! And you are always reminding me of that, aren't you?"

"No!"

"Putting your hair the same way, talking to me like her!"

"Maybe it's because you hit her, like how you hit me! You killed her, didn't you?" She finally snaps, and Christina's eyes are aflame with rage as the table burns behind her. "You killed her and hid it, and it's your fault, isn't it? You hit her in the head one day and she just stopped breathing. Or you ran over her with your car?"

"No!"

"So which is it?" She continues crying. "You're going to kill me too!"

"I should!"

"You never loved me. Or her."

He reaches into his robe and pulls out a gun. "You take it back."

"No!"

"You take it back, or-"

It happens in slow motion, he stumbles backward as Christina cries, and his finger pulls back on the trigger. Her eyes widen, and he screams as the bullet races toward her, slowly, then fast and it finds a mark, right in the middle of her forehead.

"No!"

The body thuds to the ground, stone dead, and blood rushes from her head and runs over her beautiful green eyes onto the floor, as her drunk father slams into the wall, throwing the gun to the ground. Her nightgown soaks up blood, and her skin is quickly covered in it.

Jorge puts out the fire on the table, and the room goes dark.

Then he steps over the body, softly, ignoring it, and returns down the hall to his bedroom and cracks open another beer. He falls asleep before he finishes it.

I wonder if he will remember killing her, or if he will think it was just a dream.