I startle
myself awake from uncontrollable cough and clasp my hands to my mouth. The air feels suffocating and hot. I keep my eyelids sealed in fear of what
might be on the other side. I must have
fallen asleep in this wheat field as I wished time were frozen. But time passes and things change, like this
ground and my anger, both hot, scalding almost.
I open my
eyes slowly in hopes of seeing the stars where I had left them, but staring
back at me are the piercing eyes of a red fire.
It coaxes with its long arms as it runs in quick circles around my
clearing, closing me in.
“I know
you’re in there!” you holler.
A long search
of the house, barn and car must have
narrowed down your options of where I could be hiding. So yes, naturally, that leaves the
field. I imagine your small brain would
have figured it out sooner had the loss of blood not slowed you down.
“Stupid
brute,” I mutter.
At this
moment, my Mother’s words ring clearly in my mind in her know-it-all accent,
“you shouldn’t marry a man who puts his needs ahead of your own or one who
doesn’t like Sinatra”. I should have
listened to her, but unless “fly me to the moon” are more than song lyrics, not
much help it’ll do me now.
The fire
closes in. If I’m going to escape, I
have to make a run for it. I bunch my
dress together tightly around my thighs, hoping not to singe its hem in the
jumping flames. My shoeless feet dance
through a low grazing fire. Left, right,
left, right—stretching my legs in hopes to leap across more ground towards the
freedom of the dark forest.
The smoke
dries my eyes and unable to hold them open, they impulsively close. The scent of sweet burning wheat fills my
nose, as the crackling fire illuminates my eardrums forming a trail through my blindness.
Then
without warning, the smell of your cologne:
“GOTCHA!” you roar.
With one
clawing hand, I stop dead in my tracks in a whiplash retraction as your
blood soaked palm wrenches my hair. My
head, my neck, my arms, my legs make their descent towards the earth in a slow
motion dive, as if heaven is fighting with hell for my body. Hell wins.
I scream
and squirm for release, but your grip on my scalp is unyielding, the pain
unbearable, the ground burns my skin as you drag me back towards my prison; our
house. My mind goes black. Emptiness
consumes.
Is this
death?
