Smile a little smile for me

Sunday, October 18, 2009,

Chapter 9: Memory

Be like a flower, girl.

No.

Destroy, destroy all those flowers in the garden. Yes, destroy. Let them all turn brown, wilt. All the disgusting plants. No longer beautiful. No longer fragrant.

I have always hated flowers.

Then, the first time I spilt blood. Yes, that of my mother. My father, who came home drunk every day. He’d slap, pinch, kick my mother. And I, just a little girl, sitting, wedged between two armchairs watching the scene in horror.

My mother, she was slowly becoming angrier, more worried, reclusive. Her hair turned from a brilliant, shining red to a wretched grey. Wrinkles stretched across her face and she bore many scars on her body.

I was scared.

Then one day, she limped towards me. She looked like a hag. One of her sockets was empty, and blood flowed out like a stream. A toe was missing and she left a trail of blood.

“Come…to…hell…with…me…” Plunge. She drove a dagger into my arm. Screaming, I ran to the kitchen, grabbed any knife I could see and threw it at her.

“DIE! DIE! DIE!” I cried. There she lay, a gory sight in a pool of blood. I ran to my father’s room. There he lay too, against the wall.

He was dead. Blood was everywhere.

I was frightened. I started hating flowers; my mother had loved them. She always told me to be like a flower. They were beautiful and elegant. Like her. Her name was Rose. And she wilted. A fallen, blood red rose.

I had killed her.

So, I fled.

9:01 PM