You Can't Make A Mechanical Heart Now

Chapter 3

I was hungry. My stomach felt as if it was disintegrating with each second that was passing. It's been so long since I've eaten. My arms were boney and my face so hollow. You can see my ribs very distinctly if you remove my clothes, you could see how the clothes I wore were baggy and oversized. They were my size, but my deprivation of food and nourishment has let them become at least thrice my size. My skin was a sickly pale, I looked almost dead. It was funny considering that woman hadn't gone up to tell my husband about me when she had seen me limp out of the basement. I felt like I was dying as the days pass. If you asked me to choose between to live and to die, I would choose to die. There must be something better than life because I'm starting to question the purpose of life.

What did it mean to live? To grow old looking back at when you were young? I've done that, there is nothing special to it. To party until you fall? Now that was a stupid way to live. To look at your achievements that you've made in the world and make a living of yourself, to make someone happy? To grow old with the one you loved most? To know that your descendants are making you proud and are making a living like that one you made? Maybe that was what it meant to live. I didn't know. I couldn't live. I felt like one of the cyborgs and robots you see roaming the streets of the world today. It felt like an endless cycle of life without any... life. A life without any life.

Now that's funny.

I hear the tapping of feet, the clacking of Italian loafers on the marble floor of the kitchen as they made its way closer to the door of the basement. I knew it would be my husband. It always was. What did he want now? For me to come in bed with him again? Ridiculous. My husband would probably just come down here for a quick fuck and then leave me there lying on the dirty cold basement floor soiled in semen. Repugnant. Maybe he would also beat me closer to death this time. I was still human with so little life and yet so many time. Why not make time run out for me, will you, dear husband of mine? Why not show me what it's like to live life without a life?

That's funny.

The door to the basement then creaked open. I could hear his Italian loafers clack against the creaky wooden boards of the stairs, letting more dust fly around in this dusty basement. I've grown used to this dusty environment. I used to cough every time, but now dust had become like the air I breathe. I might just get sick living in another area with no dust.

"Alec, my love, are you here?", I heard him call. He was drunk again, I knew. He would never call me his 'love'. But is it not too early to be drinking especially when the children are awake? I don't know.

"Alec, please come out, my love. It's time to eat breakfast.", he said. What a fool he is, I thought. He was drunk. He would never ask me to join him for breakfast much less tell me it's time to eat while the children are in the dining room. I didn't move from me place and kept quiet. I could hear him walk towards me slowly. I didn't move. His steps didn't sound like he was drunk, but I knew he was drunk. He was drunk beyond belief.

He placed a hand on my shoulder and I flinched. Why was his hand just there? Why wasn't he beating me? "Come up, my love. It's time to eat breakfast. Agatha, Sebastian, and Annika are in the dining room as we speak. Don't you want to see our children?", he said. I didn't know the answer to that. He said 'our'. I was afraid he'd beat me again so I shook my head softly 'no'.

"No? Why don't you want to see our kids? They miss you," he told me. I kept quiet. Maybe he was lying again. He did that once to show me my place as a lowly servant.

I kept quiet again and made no move to answer. He sighed and picked me up bridal style. I flinched and shook. He picked me up in his arms and he expects me to lay still there. I was getting scared, getting nervous. Where was he taking me? Maybe he wasn't lying, but I couldn't be too sure of it. He could most likely bring me to his room to rape me again to fulfill his selfish desires or it would be most likely that it would be time he'd sell me off as a sex slave. That would be the last thing that would happen to me. I'd die before giving myself up to complete strangers and have myself shattered. I grit my teeth and struggle out of his grip, but his grasp on me as a much more better and firmer hold.

"My love, calm down! I have to take you to the baths and dress you up nicely before letting you eat with the children!", he said.

He's lying, I thought.

We were up the grand stairs and if I fall I might hurt - or kill myself possibly -, but I'll manage. He tries to maintain a strong grip on my body, but I keep on thrashing. With perseverance, I finally then fall out of his grip, falling back down the stairs. The next thing I knew was that pain was erupting everywhere in my body and my head - more likely my face - had hit something and I passed out. Before I did pass out, I could hear him calling out to me, calling out my name. He never called me by my name. He always calls me with his degrading names, bitch, slut, whore, etc.

It's funny.