Vengeance

        I've never enjoyed red roses. They remind me of the blood that flows through our veins, waiting for the opportune moment to escape and cause death to the very sanctuary it once swore to protect.

                 

        It was early in the morning, late in the evening, and my adolescent mind had begun to fall under the blessings of a dream. A good one without doubt, for at this time in my life I had no reason to stir as victim of a nightmare. Just as I fell away from the limits of the real world into the limitless atmosphere of my subconscious, a noise awoke me.

        Startled as I was, the motivation of a child is weak in matters of awaking, for this is a parent’s duty, to examine sounds of peculiarity. Nevertheless, as the sound persisted with exceeding intensity and severity, I found myself rising from the comfort and warmth of my blankets into cold, unwelcoming air.

        As I rubbed the sleep and the now far away dream from my eyes, the clock sitting at my bedside table told me that it was 3:17 a.m. The hallway light shone through the bottom crack of my bedroom door. This was normal, as my mother always left the light on just in case. Just in case. I stumbled myself through the hallway, touching the walls gently to support myself and the stubborn legs that carried me, not wanting to leave the comfort of sleep. Finally, I made my way through the never-ending hall and found myself standing in the kitchen, scanning the scene.

        All was well, normal. The knives all in place resting beside the fridge. Pictures of my family covering the front of the refrigerator door in an attempt to display the happiness and perfect illusion of our family. Looking back, it was a fictional paradise that those pictures created, like a collage. Our love and life had been demonstrated there for the world to see, with pure pride and absolutely no shame. If I knew what was to follow I would have stayed admiring that collage for the rest of my days.

        Instead, my eye caught a spot on the kitchen floor tremendously out of place. Dark red interrupted the pattern of the white tile floor in fluctuating spots of fear. They enforced a path, begging me to follow. Now my legs were controlling my mind as I followed the trail of fear cautiously, slowly, and reluctantly. It led to my parent’s room.

        Here, I paused. Although I was young, I had been blessed with the fortune of intelligence and I read the scene all too well. Quickly I declared the dark red spots to being wine as opposed to blood. The consistency and color was wrong for blood. Having said this, my mother was not one to portray signs of clumsiness, and she was not one to drink at 3:00 in the morning. Something was wrong. I prepared my eyes for what was on the other side of the door, and advanced.

        Opening the door, I immediately saw that the entirety of her wine had spelt across the white carpet. The stain creating a cruel line meant for my eye to follow. At the end of this stain my mother’s hand lay motionless and flat, no longer supporting the cup of wine, her wedding ring still engraved on her finger. The length of her arm was prominent, another line meant for my eye to follow. At the end of her arm I could see her bare shoulder and back connected by a large bruise. Her thin, feeble neck stretched out along her arm as if she had fallen asleep on account of drunkenness.

        This was no sleep she was in. For her naked body, which was being so openly displayed to me, had already began to rot and grow pale with shame. The beauty in her curves that had once caressed me with the promise of life now raged with a stillness and lifeless aura. All the love that once consumed her was now replaced with the acceptance and relief of death.

        Emotionless, and without even the slightest evidence of fear, I covered her pale, nude body with a red blanket that she had woven for my father (I now regret this, for she should not have been covered in death with a remembrance of the cruelty that haunted her in life) and left the room and house without succumbing to a single tear.  Here, I began to feel within me an emotion so strong that it clouded my mind with complete blindness. It was with this loathing that I succeeded in seeking blood without regret or contriteness.

                 

        After leaving behind the house of wine and tears, I found my way through the streets, searching for one thing, and one thing only. I did not fear the results of my actions, nor did I take in anything other than that which would lead me to my destination. I knew where my revenge would be. It would be waiting for me without suspense or suspect.

         I need only walk a few blocks to reach the sanctuary of my revenge.

         After taking such a journey dressed only in my boxer shorts, I stood outside of the house with certainty of what I would do. The house is simple and white. It is small, yet large enough to make a man feel welcome. I had frequented the house many times before with my father. It was here that the secrets of our family suffocated the perfect appearance displayed on our refrigerator door. My father did not think I was old enough to understand the frequent visits to this house, but he underestimated the extraordinary abilities of my young mind.

         Without second thought, I made my way up the wooden steps that burned my ears with the sound of old creaks and hoped that the door would be unlocked. It was, of course, for this is what I was meant to do.

I walked through the house with confidence as I knew every corner of its design. The resting place of every piece of stained furniture, wrinkled rug, sharp kitchen knife.

         Even from a distance I could hear the sounds echoing from the bedroom. My father’s unmistakable moan that originated from the bottom of his throat and came out in a low, powerful rumble. Her sighs so young and impressionable.

         Just like I had at my own house, I paused outside of the door. How marvelous it is, the sounds two people will make during love making when they are in the allusion of solitude. I had succeeded in avoiding emotion until now. Within me the beginnings of disgust and forlornness began to boil my blood to a dangerous temperature. I saw myself from afar, as if I was amidst a story of horror being created by one of my enemies out of sick satisfaction and cruel enjoyment.

         Before my emotions could take hold of my irrationality any further, I flung open the door and became amused at their reaction. Immediately the knife that I had grabbed from the kitchen began to burn a hole of excitement and adrenaline through my hand. My father, naked and developed was still connected to her as his eyes settled upon me and the elongation of the knife. Suddenly he broke the connection and raised his arms in a pathetic gesture of surrender. He was offering himself to me in all ways possible. This offering triggered an arousal within me and a joy that surged through all parts of my body.

         My eyes moved on to her. The emotion on her face mirrored my fathers. She was frozen on her back. Her naked body so young and otherwise untouched. Her firm breasts and slender body continued to trigger my arousal until it began to cause me an inexperienced pain. This pain and the sight of them only increased my anger and before they could utter a noise other than screams I attacked them with every ounce of boiling blood that was bubbling within me.

         The white sheets, once so pure, that covered the bed quickly became covered in vengeful blood. The splotches of red reminded me of the tile floor that existed only a few blocks away from this disaster and I began to become proud of what I had done. Their beautiful screams quickly subsided to piercing silence and their naked bodies lay woven together in death. It was here that it occurred to me how wonderful it would have been if they were still connected when they died.

         For hours I stood in the middle of the room engraving the image of my design within my mind, as if I were hoping to paint it as a picture later.

         The reality of what I had done began to eat away at me like the rain does to a sheet of metal. Once so excited, so sure of my actions, now standing in the aftermath I was more disgusted with myself than I had been towards the two bodies that were so full of sexual life.

         Along with my arousal, the satisfaction of my actions disappeared and I began to crave the solace of the place that I used to regard as home. Although it was clear to me now that my childhood had been nothing more than a mere fantasy, I craved the false reality of those pictures on the refrigerator door. The time was reaching morning and the sun would soon be rising, becoming witness to the awful thing I had done while under careless watch of the moon. Paranoid, I made my way back from where I had come and let myself into the house that I used to call home.

         The familiar smell hit me like a terrifying realization and I found myself at a loss for actions. Unknowing of what to do I went to the one place that I felt comfort and ease. My mother’s body had not moved, there she lye with the red forsaken blanket covering her nudity. I lifted the blanket and with tears flowing down my soft face pressed my blood stained body against the purity of her bosom.

         It was here that it occurred to me what it would be like to die. Until now I had not seen life as something that could be so easily erased. It is no more concrete than paper at mercy of fire, fire smothered by water, or water vaporized by heat of the sun. All simply exists to be wiped from existence. Therefore, death, to me, became no more natural than life. When both exist in the same world, they are equally as welcoming and tragic all at once.

        With thoughts of irrelevance clouding my once adolescent mind, I fell into a sleep from which I would never awake. Here, caressed against the very bosom that once breathed life within me, as swiftly as the fragrance of a flower fades to winter, I died of a heavy, broken heart.

 

        Such a curious happening, to become guest at one’s own funeral. To see people whom you’ve never seen before. To see enemies shed synthetic tears. To see loved ones genuinely lament at the sound of your name. You will never understand just how loved, and how loathed you were until you become a bystander to your final farewell.

        Red roses. Red roses were the flower of choice. They sat on my coffin and became one with the earth as they lowered me into the ground. They lie at mercy to the bright white of my tombstone in a sickly, mocking fashion. The guests dressed in sorrows of black cradled them and kissed their petals before placing them upon mine and my parent’s graves. I wished that the rain would wash away the blood that so permanently stained the pure petals of the roses. I wished that I could force myself through the thickness of the black crowd of sorrow and destroy the red roses that were suffocating our graves.

        Without body, and in ultimate defeat, I separated myself from mine and my parent’s funeral and found myself gliding across the empty streets towards the open door of the house our family once occupied in blind acceptance.

        Immediately my soul gravitated toward the refrigerator door. Here, I could pretend that our family was as perfect as this collage portrayed. It lied, yet it was within this lie that I found myself consumed and in complete happiness.

        Neither my mother’s, nor my father’s soul accompanied me to our house. I can guess that my father and his mistress remained in her house where they could remain in love making without disturbance for the rest of their days.

        My mother, being the only soul that committed no wrong, presumably found her way to heaven. She must have become one of God’s angels, so empty and broken on Earth, but full of luminescence and vibrancy amongst the clouds. Someday she will come for me. Surely she will come. She will come for her baby and I will live the rest of my translucent days in her warm company.

         Until then, I will remain within the house that once became witness to the limitless dreams of my subconscious along with the limits of the cruel world, and my cruel instinct. I will wrap myself within the falsity of the refrigerator collage and standing amidst the stains of red on the white tile floor, paint the picture of what I and my family could have become. Altogether knowing the impossibility and forsaken truth that exists beyond this simple dream, this simple fantasy.

         This, I’ve decided, is my punishment, my hell.