Mortal Man & The 7 Deadly Sins

Part 2

Morning comes, and the sun shines through my window like a star in the night sky. I can feel its glimmer seeping through my eyelids, urging them open. Coupled with my brother enjoying another whore's pleasure, her moan bled through the thin walls, screeching my eardrums. The bed begins grinding against the floor, scratching the already damaged wood. Every sound entered my ear so distinct and intimate as if I were beside them... These annoying sounds spun a distant memory through my mind, reopening a never-healing scar, wounding me mentally all over again.

15 years ago... I was only eight years old, and Domi was only 13. We were in our studio apartment, my brother and I sharing a red futon. The futon was covered in holes and scratches, with the cotton falling out every time we laid our thin, food-stricken bodies upon its surface. Our mother did her best to keep our place clean, with buckets throughout the apartment where water dripped through the ceiling. She patched holes in the floor, where the roaches would trickle through in waves, like squadrons of an army.

This particular night, it was 9:00 P.M. and our mother just finished preparing supper. Our father arrived home every night at 9:15, never late, never early. Domi, our mother, and I waited, finally a little after 10:00 P.M. we heard the floor of our old apartment complex whining, with multiple footsteps coming down the hallway, slowly encroaching. Each step was louder than the last until they finally reached the door. But tonight... It wasn't our father who arrived at our home. Instead, what came home? Every piece of his body was delivered to our front door. His arms, legs, and head were severed from his body. All in a cardboard box filled with his blood that overflown and dripped out the creases, like a broken faucet with water trickling to the floor.

My mother let the loudest screech I've heard, so loud and horrifically mesmerizing I can still hear it, amidst the silence of the night. It rang through my ears for what felt like hours. My mother hasn't spoken a word since that day, shortly after their arrival... she joined my father in death. The men who delivered the box were Japanese gangsters, with tattoos that covered their entire bodies like a mosaic. They stood as still and emotionless as statues, two men. One stood at 6'4 with long black hair that fell down his back, braided together, with the body build of a sumo wrestler. The other was shorter, standing at 5 '10, bald, with a dragon tattoo starting on the top of his head and stretching down with the tail wrapped around his neck.

The mysterious men bore pistols on their hips and swords on their backs. After my mother screeched, she dropped to her knees, weeping in sorrow. The large man grabbed her by the neck, lifted her into the air, and tossed her to the side. Then he lifted the cardboard box, filled with my father's body parts, and walked over to Domi and me. Then, he dumped the bloody parts on the floor in front of us. "This is what happens when your debts are not paid.." He said with a Japanese accent, those were the only words he spoke. Domi, trembling in fear, lifted our father's slain head out of the box and cried nonstop.

Each man laughed hysterically as Domi sobbed, the one with the dragon tattoo walked over to my mother. Standing over her feeble body, he spit onto her face, unbuckled his belt, and unzipped his pants. He dragged her over to the kitchen table, smacked our supper into the floor, then lifted her nightgown. He raped my mother continually, as she stared at me. Although she was alive, with tears leaking from her eyes, and her lips shivering, I could feel that her soul was gone. The same eyes, with tears flowing like a river stream, were lifeless. It's as if she felt nothing, but everything at the same time. The large man scrambled through the little belongings we had left, taking anything of value he could find.

Domi was still sobbing as he sorted out the body parts of our dead father, placing them together. I stepped off the futon, my legs shaking, my lips quivering, one step at a time I slowly walked over to the kitchen counter. I grabbed the 7-inch butcher knife, the dragon tattoo was all I could see as that wretched man violated my innocent mother. I was mortified, everything inside of me was telling me to run. But.. I couldn't, I couldn't leave my mother like this.