The taut ropes secured my wrists in place on the board that held me over the burning sticks. I could feel the scorching heat condense into beads of sweat on my forehead. The flames licked at my feet as I realised that I had but only a precious few seconds before I was devoured by the monster we call fire, until I was burned at the stake. I screamed as a spark landed on my shoulder and and another on my my upper arm. I heard a raspy voice forcing out, " Time to get up, you-" (I will not relate to you what the voice called me, for it is too heinous a word for me to even write on these pages.)
I let my eyes become slits in my flat, uneventful face. Immediately they were stung by cigarette smoke being puffed at me. It was my mother and her usual wake up call: the poke up the butt of the cigarette and a puff of smoke as soon as the eyes were opened. Ah yes, she did not act like the mom you typically read about in books. In fact, on this subject, I should feel guilty if I did not tell you that this story is not a glad one. It is simply a sad tale of my remorse and hatred for the abuse inflicted upon me by all those who surrounded me. My life was a muddle of pain, hatred, and rejection flowing out of every pore. So if you are interested in stories on how happy ending are at the back and of every tale, then I regret to inform you that this is not a series of happy thing after happy thing with a happy ending. This is a story about real life: happy endings only happen in the right circumstances. And my life is a great big wrong circumstance. So with that small but vital detour, I shall resume my living nightmare.
"Your breakfast is on the table, that buss of yours will be here in five minutes and if you are late again then I am not driving you to that disgusting school of yours."
I did not answer, and hardly ever do. I didn't find the need to talk more than necessary, especially to her.
Running down the stairs I picked up the bottle of Ranch Dressing mom had "Oh-so-kindly" set out for my breakfast, and ran a brush through my chocolate (more like mud) colored hair. I scooped up my backpack, slipped on my flip-flops and bolted for the door, so I didn't have to endure more of mom's curse words. I would not eat that ranch if I had to starve myself till lunch but, ugh, a pang of unsatisfied hunger struck my very soul. I was tardy getting home from school yesterday and as a result: no dinner and confinement to my room until I was let out. The reason I was held back was because I had been cornered in the alleyway by a group of former juvenile delinquents who wanted to give me their drugs. I managed to escape their proddings by the police, who ever so gladly escorted me home. Its is not like there was anything I could possibly do about it. If I could have stopped what happened that afternoon I would have! But I sure did give those rancid onion-eyed scuts a look to chew on for a few days in while enjoying their stay in jail.
But don't stress about this incident. I have grown used to it after years of living with my mother. She has her numerous boyfriends over and they tussle to see who was more muscle and my mom plays dumb with ever present cigarette stuck in her everpresent cleavage. After one wins a fight the others go home and baby their wounds, while the victor stays the night and mom plays bartender to him to him until he is too drunk to know night from day and goes off into the darkness without a word or whim. This pitiful procedure happens every Friday night, while I hide under my bed in fear of the raging shouts and hits and pick-up lines followed by my mother's giggles through the red lipstick and blue eye shadow.
On other nights mom gets drunk and confines me to a closet to sleep for the night or ties me to the couch and forces me to watch the horror movies she swears are the juice of her very existence. And when I try to squeeze my eyes shut to block out the nightmares that now haunt my every thought, she dunks me in to toilet until I am senseless from disgust and lack of air.
I put a dry cracked hand to my stomach, then looked at the condiment in my hand. I had not eaten since can of tuna fish I forced down for lunch yesterday and I suppose I hadn't noticed the gripping of my empty stomach to my ribs. Another wave came over me, this one much more severe to the point where I could not stand. I felt my knees give way underneath me. Blackness enveloped my world.
I was walking down my street. I was all alone and everything was spotless and white, without a single blemish. It was as if my whole avenue had agreed to clean everything. This deprived, tumble-down place I had lived my whole life was now looking as sharp as the rich boulevards in the east side of New Orleans. All of a sudden I heard a sort of drum sounding a strange rhythm: DA-DA-dum-de-de-DA-DA-dum-de-de. Over and over growing louder and louder until the very sound seemed to find its source from my brain. Looking around to find the where this overpowering sound was coming from I saw a group of men pounding their temples with hammers in the same rhythm as the sound resounding in my head. The men's eyes were bloodshot and angled in such a way that only the hammers pounding in their head could be an exclamation. Blood trickled into their hollow cheekbones and down their necks and hardened on their naked arms. After a while of watching this procedure in horror the leader of them put aside his hammers and the rest followed as the banging inside my head softened. After giving me two hammers the man again began began to hit. Then for a terrifying moment I saw my arm lift the hammers one by one to the sides of my head. I could do nothing on my own will. I felt them hit my head and the rhythm started again. Pain. The agonizing pain was all I thought, all I felt and all I knew. I was not longer in control of my body. I felt my clothes melt away melt away and now I was wearing nothing but the loin cloth the others had on. Not only was this excruciating but mortifying. Hours went by as my vision was distorted and still the DA-DA-dum-de-de on my head and the pain was uncomparable. Would this ever stop? Would I ever be saved? I tried to yell out but my mouth wouldn't open. forever this rhythm inside my head. Forever the pain
