Posts Tagged murder

She made the mistake of reading the list of Top Ten News Headlines. Reminded, yet again, of the insanity that surrounds us; the human beasts we are forced to co-exist with. A truth that at times, is almost too much to bear.

Lab worker held in Yale student’s slaying – Mom finds slain bodies of 2 kids, ex-husband – Case casts spotlight on sex offenders – Hofstra student recants rape story – Millionaire gets 8 years for sex with orphans – Teen could be charged in smaller L.A. fire – Bone found at Calif. kidnap suspects’ home – Notre Dame sues ex-worker over $29,000 tip – Woman arrested for spanking stranger’s child – Prison log: Execution trouble due to drug use

She finished the list, turned off the computer and gently shut the lid. Walked to her bedroom, closed the curtains, climbed into bed, pulled the covers over her head; and wept.

Some people laugh and call it cute.
Some people label her anti-social.

Some think she’s naïve, lost in her own world.
Some call her a self-centered bitch.

Some say she’s an overprotective mother.
Some advise she should cut the apron strings.

Some get it.
Some never will.

She didn’t ask to be here. Wasn’t an errant soul who mistakenly happened into this world; sent here as punishment for behaving badly, or waiting for that next big reincarnation, in search of a real adventure.
But she is.
Here.

That doesn’t mean she has to like it. Doesn’t mean that by being “one with the universe,” she must accept that being part of the “whole,” means we are “all one.” She’s not certain if she will ever accept that as truth. Perhaps that’s why she’s here now. Perhaps that’s the one thing that keeps bringing her back; over and over again.

She has a very clear vision of the duality of good and evil that lives within each and every human being. Possesses an uncanny ability to penetrate the façade, see behind the veil, and into the soul where good and evil resides. A gift? A curse? Call it what you will, but its something she has lived with her entire life. Defining and honing in her adulthood. Used as a tool to reason and rationalize paths taken in her youth. Researching and recording events predicted, premonitions seen, déjà vu witnessed.

Her path is a winding one. Her journey is of a spiritual nature. Not in search of God, for she knows where He dwells, but rather to obtain a better understanding of the why’s and how’s of this material world, as well as the afterworld and those who dwell in between the two.

Knowing for certain that when we reach the highest realm of being, we will be shown the ultimate reality; when everything else leading to it, is nothing but illusion; an illusion that all too often is filled with real life monsters, who take lives and destroy souls.

There is a very real battle of good and evil, existing in all corners of the world, every single minute of every single day. Well aware of the ever-present threat, she does not wear blinders because she’s too weak or uncaring to handle the truth of the world. She does it out of necessity; for her own personal survival.

She is unable to return the gift she was given; to lift the curse and see only what she chooses; incapable of numbing herself to the truth within the illusion, by allowing herself to be spoon fed images that television executives and the media think we need to see and hear, by simply tuning in and zoning out. It doesn’t work that way for her.

But, oh, how she sometimes wishes it did…

It was a small southern town in the 1950‘s, just like every other, all across these “united” states. They were standing on the corner outside the drugstore; where the sign on the door read, “No Coloreds Allowed.” Threes brothers in their late teens and early twenties, all of them the spitting image of their daddy; and the Tulle sisters, one of which had just agreed to marry the elder brother.

“What I wouldn’t give, to walk in that store and order us up some celebratory soda’s,” Zachariah said with heartfelt enthusiasm; knowing full well that doing so would land him straight in the county jail, or worse. Miss May threw her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the lips. “There’ll be plenty of time to celebrate once we tell our families the news.”

With his heart overflowing with love and his mind in a heightened state of euphoria, Zachariah let out a walloping “WHOO-HOO,” as he picked up his girl and swung her around in his arms. The crowd gathered in line outside the cinema, all turned to watch the spectacle; ever suspicious and wary of the ways of “the coloreds.”

Zachariah set his bride-to-be gently on the ground, then proceeded to pick up his brothers in turn and do the same. Just then an elderly couple exited the drug store, and Zachariah ran up, grabbed the man’s hand and shook it with enthusiasm, announcing that he was the happiest man in the world. The couple recoiled and the woman grabbed her husband by the arm. Zachariah paid no attention to the negative reaction, as there was nothing in the world could bring him down this day.

He leapt for joy, making his way toward the cinema, where he proceeded to shake the hands of everyone gathered in line. His brothers and the Tulle sisters, stood shaking their heads, laughing at his foolishness; delighting in their happiness. Then as if the world suddenly stopped spinning on its axes and began moving in slow motion, the shot rang out and Zachariah slowly fell backward to the ground. His body hit the pavement with a powerful thud, bounced a few inches back off the ground, then landed limp and lifeless.

The next morning the newspaper touted old man Henderson a hero; for single handedly stopping the colored boy, who as witness’ claimed, had lost his mind, gone mad, and began attacking the crowd of innocent bystanders outside the Main Street Cinema.

I didn’t know what to say; everyone was shocked when they heard, devastated really, at the tragedy of it all; everyone but me that is.

I said nothing when they told me, remained completely numb and emotionless; not because I wasn’t saddened by the loss, but because I saw it coming; warned her even, but she didn’t listen; was way past the point of caring what others said or thought; totally out of control, careening down the road of destruction; in this case death.

It was as if the moment he left, she slipped into a state of denial and depression. Not to say she wasn’t ready to start a new chapter in her life, but I think it was the way he left that affected her so. They’d been together way too long, taking each other for granted, slipping into routine and accepting the comfortableness of their life along with the dysfunction; because it was easier to just let it go than to actually let go and move on. But he had had enough; told her he wanted out and that’s what crushed her ego and drove her to this madness.

She sought medical attention after a few months of non-living and was given medication, warned of its side affects and dangers and cautioned not to mix with alcohol or any other drugs; soon thereafter her alter-ego emerged; as if someone had flipped a switch inside her mind and then wound the gears too tight.

I didn’t believe it at first, when she told me she’d met a carnie working the state fair. I laughed and only when I saw the hurt in her eyes did I know that she was serious. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been one to believe that we’re defined by what we do for a living, but when she showed me the picture of him she’d snapped with her phone, I knew my misgivings were not off the mark.

She only saw him twice, but that turned out to be one time too many. They found her body in the woods less than a mile from the fairgrounds; raped, mutilated and decomposing; a stuffed pink pig on the ground beside her, an obvious prize from one of the midway games, with traces of cotton candy and blood under her fingernails. Her four kids who were once her entire world, will now be raised by their grandparents; and forever left to wonder what really happened to their mother, as the woman killed was not the embodiment of the mother they knew and loved.

He heard his son screaming across the yard. Horrified, Keith looked up in time to see his nephew, Joshua, with the yellow plastic bat raised over his head, whacking his cousin, not just once, but four times, yelling in his little boy voice, “shut…the…fuck…up,” each word correlating contact.

He reprimanded him immediately; taking the bat and explaining that it was wrong to hit, but even as he spoke, he couldn’t help but wonder if all this was worth the effort, as he gazed into the child’s wild, staring eyes.

*****

They grew up in the same upper-middle-class home with the same parents, only 3 years apart in age. They witnessed the same fights, the same violence, the same rage, yet they interpreted it completely different.

Keith, the younger of the two, tried to protect their mother on several occasions, coming out battered and bruised because of it, and still, he was the one who wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and sat with her, holding her hand while she cried, vowing that one day he’d make it stop.

The elder brother, Todd, blamed their mother for causing their father to lose his temper and explode into uncontrollable fits of rage, knowing better than to cross the old man’s path and believing that everything would be different if only she’d keep her big mouth shut!

Keith grew up to become a respectable member of the community, having opened a medical practice right there in their little town. He also married his college sweetheart and was the proud, doting father of a 4-year-old son and newborn daughter. While Todd on the other hand, barely graduated high school, shacked up with the town whore after knocking her up and made his living working at the local Sunoco station and selling weed to make ends meet.

He is currently serving a life sentence for bludgeoning her to death with a baseball bat; a violent act that occurred when he happened to go home for lunch one afternoon and found her packing her bags in preparation of leaving his sorry ass; an act witnessed by their 2-year-old son, as he stood in the doorway, bottle in one hand, blanket in the other, bundled up and ready to go.

© Copyright 2008 by Jill Terry. All Rights Reserved.