I heard the distinctive cracking sound of bone as her neck snapped and watched in slow motion as her body slumped towards the floor falling limp and lifeless. The end of the glass coffee table was smudged with blood and the tell tale bruises on her face began to deepen in color as her body drained of life. I watched intently as he stood over her with a look of disdain embedded in the creases that embodied his face. He callously removed the wedding ring from her finger just before flashing me a distasteful sneer.
“Guess she won’t be needing this anymore.” He said his voice tainted with a repulsive indignation.
Everything inside me wanted to lunge forward and take him by the throat, tearing mercilessly into his flesh and hearing him cry out in terrible agony. My face had become distorted with intense rage and hatred. The funny thing was these overwhelming emotions had been directed at her not him. She had allowed herself to be victimized for so long, refusing any and all help that had been offered so many times before that it sickened me to an indescribable degree. I hated her for being so weak and allowing this tragedy to transpire…but I knew it had been inevitable.
My gaze fell upon him laden with a cold, harsh stare. His sneer quickly melted away and was immediately replaced with trepidation and genuine concern for his own well-being. The question that rang alarmingly loud in his head was whether this incident had been enough to push me over the edge. Had he overstepped his bounds in my presence and was I going to serve as the executioner for the crime he had just committed? It had pushed me beyond my boundaries but my anger with her over the matter prevented me from sentencing him to death right then and there. I had decided to let the judicial system work it’s magic and hopefully watch him rot the remainder of his life away behind steel bars just like dear old dad. If not, then I would see that justice was served myself.
Had I entered the room but a few minutes earlier I may have been able to prevent this tragedy. However, fate had something else in mind. Under the circumstances any normal human being would have felt guilty and suffered terrible emotional trauma from such an experience. The fact was…I was not a normal, average person. I harbored a dark family secret, one that would have destroyed many people but I had made the choice to live with it. I had known that this outcome was inevitable…it was simply a matter of time before he would snuff the very life from her body just as our father had done to our mother so many years earlier. Violence and physical pain were an inherent part of our lives; they contaminated our bloodlines and ran rampant throughout our family history. Grandpa had beat grandma, dad beat mom, and my brother beat his wife…it was a tragic and seemingly unavoidable pattern that plagued each generation.
I pitied and loathed the women in our family for their weak and pathetic nature and I hated myself for being so callous. Needless to say, I had made attempts to intervene and to provide them with some sense of hope. My efforts had been shrugged off and ignored. I had become like my grandfather and father before me…cold, hard, and dead inside. Emotion was far too complicated and required an incredible expenditure of energy. My attempts in the past had proven futile and all I ever received in return were rejection, embarrassment, and failure in my attempts. I gave up trying to ‘help’ these women and merely served as the aloof family member that cared little for others.
My greatest fear was that the same tainted blood as that of my paternal donors coursed viciously through my veins as well. It was only a matter of time before I too degraded into just such a hideous monster. As a child growing up under these horrendous conditions I began to equate the development of deep, meaningful feelings for another individual as a weakness that eventually would spring open the gates of hell sending a torrent of emotional and physical chaos streaming through into my reality. My brother had been nothing but kind and romantic in the beginning of his relationship with my sister-in-law. I started to believe that the curse had skipped our generation and perhaps was being purged from our bloodlines. This, unfortunately, had not been the case for about a year into their marriage he began to act out violently against her. My hope had been that she would stand up to him and subdue the monster that stirred beneath his skin but she was not strong enough to be able to accomplish such an arduous task. In truth, she did not deserve such a tragic outcome.
