Such a sad song she played. The deep notes synced with the ink dripping from the spilled vile on the table, and the sweet melody mimicked the drizzle of rain that tapped on the arch window behind her. Her ghostly white fingers with the nails painted black danced gracefully across the keys as she wept lightly, singing the song scrawled on the sheet music on the stand. She didn't have to look at the words; she knew them by heart. She pressed her school-girl heels to the pedals, only lifting her hand once in a while to wipe her eyes with her embroidered handkerchief and to sip from her tea.
"Not a Night Goes By, Not a Night Goes By
Without the Burning Of My Neck From the Dead Bird's Eye.
Not a Night Goes By, Not a Night Goes By
That I Can't Help but thinking
Oh Good Lord, Please, Why?"
A bonnet tied under her chin in a neat knot, though her rich red hair still hung like a curtain around her face. It curled at the ends, falling down to her mid back and disguising the aged bruising on her fair skin. The dress swept across the floor behind the bench, bringing up clouds of dust into the air. Her breasts nearly busted from the neckline of her gown that she attempted to cover with a shall but failed. She wore no color on her, only black from head to toe with red in her hair. No jewelry hung on the woman except for a filthy wedding ring that had nearly grown into the skin of her finger.
"Have I Not Paid For My Sin?
Have I Not Paid For My Crime?
Not a Night Goes By
That I Do Not Ask To Die."
The whimpers of a toddler came through the music, only making the woman sing in despair louder than before. Angry sobs came from the woman at the piano as she ignored the child; the very shame that brought her this life of torture and despair. Ever since the nameless scum came out of that young cigarette girl, she was a woman scorned. Seeing that baby was like staring the devil in the face and asking for a cup of tea and cyanide. She saw every awful memory in the little girl's clueless eyes that just wondered why her mother didn't bring her to her breast or wipe her tears. Why she'd tried to hide her away in closets or drown her in bathtubs. Her voice became weaker as her fingers became quicker.
"Not a Night Goes By, Not a Night Goes By..."
The little girl crawled over to her mother and pulled on her dress with her chubby fingers. The woman cried harder, refusing to look down at the baby and play her music. She pounded on the keys, hoping the sound would scare her off. Yet, the little girl stayed, just waiting to have her mother look down at her with something other than sadness and anger. On the table beside the dripping ink sat a note she had finally brought herself to write.
Oh what in my life have I done to deserve such torment? I made a mistake as a young and naive girl, and now I live with the embodiment of my sin tugging at my skirts and crying all night long. The little blister grew in my body and stole every chance at happiness I had in my short life. I can't stand to look at myself and know that I let a man I never learned the name of violate me and make me give birth to his spawn. A weak and broken woman with a newborn child still on the cord, I knew the only chance I had left of a normal life was to kill the helpless being. I never succeeded, despite my attempts. Motherly instincts are not something I could easily forget to oblige. I decided marrying a man would help me live the rest of my life in some sort of peace, but the nights of endless abuse and pain have made me realize that I had indeed made another mistake. They were all I seemed to make.
In the bottom she signed her name, as a final statement she would make to the word with ink. Her final statement to the world was in progress, as the blood beginning to dribble from her lips was to prove. Her eyes were glassed and she could no longer sing, yet she forced the last sips of tea down her throat and dropped the glass to the floor and shattered beside the toddler. The song was over with a final mess of notes that came from her dying body slapping the piano with lifeless force. As if in cruel irony, her final glimpses of life were at the toddler, pulling on her gown.
