She stumbled onto a stack of mossy grey rocks and looked into a perfectly eye-shaped crevice in the rock formation which gave view to an absurdly apt vision of the swathing valley below, furnished with incredible glimmering foliage under a masked crimson sky that echoed thoroughly her desire to live.
She had grown obsessed with her own teeth, waking every other morning to an incessant thumping pain that rang from molar to medulla. The first thought that entered her weary mind on interim morning bleariness was one of suicide and regret. She'd stumble lackadaisically from her wrinkled bedsheets onto the hardwood splintering floor of her bedsit solipsism through a minute passage and into the molding cracked-tile bathroom, pulling the light cord and inspecting at great length the chasms appearing on four of her bottom teeth, mentally noting the size and shape until the next sultry morning pawed her crimson pillow case ravaged face awake with another dull toothache.
It was a January morning, the date was irrelevant, she woke to the sound of fighting in the neighbours' house, slamming doors and vase smashing antics on a dreary dewy morn when the sun was hiding and cars in the back alleys still bellowed smoke. Her routine went uninterrupted, moments of silence in the next rooms whilst she examined the damage of another night's superfluous drug use and alcoholic torment, she eyed the razor on shower shelf and reasoned to end her life, finally. That ingrained image of childhood abuse lay dormant until these types of mornings and she reached toward the glimmering raz-
Knock Knock
He was at the door and she was flustered, pulling wrinkled jeans around her hourglass waist and rushing to greet the stranger. He told her to-
She was perhaps seven years old, maybe younger, and the hazy day drew closed through rain battered and silty windows in the tenement building by the murky river, the one that slunk through midnight streets like so many lonely and wrinkled old men, searching for drugs or ****** or love or money. The beige armchair with worn out padding around the armrests was creaking under the weight of her mother, the tilting wilted wine glass that stood delicately between yellowing fingertips was almost empty now and she watched as it grew ever more horizontal before leaping up to save the carpet from another stain and her behind from another beating. Her mother awoke with start and threw accusations at her, thieving little swine. The beating was instantaneous and even in aged memories was enough to resuscitate her consciousness, in enough time to see him come and go.
It was a January morning, the date was irrelevant, and she made a cup of tea as she looked out at the schoolyard distant but ahead. Waves of screaming and rambunctious playfulness swelled and entered her kitchen window (the one with a larger than acceptable crack running the length of the pane) as she washed half a sink of dishes before drifting aimlessly to the black but yellowing nicotine stained stereo, leaving water trails on the buttons as she pressed play on the CD deck and Old Blue Eyes began to sing.
She was five years old and saw her father dripping with sweat on some halcyon summer day. He lay roads by the night's chill and slept on long afternoons. By the radiant late morning rays he would fix shelves and rewire the apartment, drinking gasoline smelling liquids that bloated his inerudite head and he would take regular breaks in the bathroom, door ajar as he fixed, belt tight, breathing heavy, eye-contact with her and she cried every time. He played Sinatra and sang along, her mother would wake and he beat her again. Over and over again. Sinatra still sang, he never stopped, he never cared. Beating. Hearts were beating. She was five years old and she feigned unconscious by her mother's side until his final fix and to bed he stumbled.
The date was irrelevant, this January morning when she gave up caring and the sink of dishes went unfinished and the bedside lamp flickered and buzzed.