Monday, November 19, 2018

A Short Story: Pendulum Virga


She had a head filled with healthy thick hair and had beautiful healthy skin. Her presence was love and happiness. And on her path, she lived, she loved, she created, and shared. Life wasn’t perfect, but she made life good. She made it good by the decisions she made under the hand she was dealt. And as she journeyed, grew, and learned, one day she met him. And all she ever got from Johnson was his honesty and acceptance. So on a special day, she offered her undying love, understanding, and to share her life with him. And he, in all his genuine greatness, offered his in return with one demand, submission. Submission, Tia thought, she young and happy, she shrugged and agreed. As months passed, Johnson asked Tia for her hand. The wedding day was perfect and the night and days after were peculiar. There was no sex before marriage, and no sex afterwards. Tia understood, and thought how exciting and different, besides there was much more to her than her body she believed, and the days moved forward.
He asked her to live in his house, which was far from friends and family, isolated in rural hills. He asked for her devoted time, and she gave it and set aside her career. And then work, mysterious work, in which he left over and over, not returning home for weeks and Tia was alone. And when he did return, he was so tired and sleepy she wouldn’t bother him with her needs. The shadows and aloneness couldn’t even be drowned out with song most times. Tia felt her happy and positivity slowly disappearing every day, being replaced with sadness and agitation. But still, she fought the negative back. When Johnson got back this time she told herself; he and her would have a real talk about his absence.
When he got back, Johnson had brought with him a woman. Tia was shocked and afraid although he came and embraced her, hugged her and kissed her. He professed the woman, Mabra, was a special woman and friend. He said he needed Tia to help him help her and he went happily forward and smiling like when they first met. Tia embraced her happy. However, the woman Mabra, she could not shake her presence. It was dark and secretive. It was a gleeful sinister and cold. Day by day she was there in rooms in the silence sitting across from her husband and also in the mornings and late into the nights. And soon he asked that Tia, ‘make her at home,’ which meant Tia waited on Mabra hand and foot. And he, he would not say who she was or what she was doing there. Mabra’s mysteriousness with her shadowy appearances, as she stood in the darkness staring at Tia in the house, was heavy. Months went by with Tia ignoring their whispers and giggles. Tia blocked out the negative, telling herself her husband can see her and he loves her and he will always be with her. She put her cloak and crown of happy back on, it blinding and beautiful, and went to and fro. She moved in an ambitious direction back towards her career and art in the empty time she spent alone. And soon after this, she felt the atmosphere change. Johnson and Mabra became silent and cold. They stopped the laughter and started stalking her and watching her. They demanded things and slammed doors and ignored her, but Tia refused to let her light die. She remained cheerful, caring, and happy. She tried to reach her husband for the understanding she gave him and the fairness he did not give, but he would lock himself away from her as usual.
Then one night he emerged into their bedroom and told Tia to get up out of the bed and get out. Tia, heart racing terrified and shocked, got up and dressed as he stood in the darkness of the doorway staring at her with seemingly silver cold eyes. She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want trouble. She didn’t want to hurt him or for him to hurt her even more so she just left on foot.
Tia walked with her clothes, her phone, and hardly any money. She reached road after road and walked down them guided by her GPS. When she reached the town, she could feel pain and didn’t know where it was coming from, as she sat on a bench in front of a store. Her phone beeped signaling a dying battery. She had sat there for so long she didn’t know if it was the same day. She used her dying phone to call her mother. She was fortunate her mother answered and came within hours to pick her up.
Overtime Tia struggled to eat, to live, to smile, and go forth. Time passed her by as she sat inside her mind wondering why he did this to her, why the cruelty, and what she could have done to cause it. Hatred, disgust, and anger came and she couldn’t shake it. It came with the ideas of that woman Mabra. A hate she rejected but could not push away. This negativity, this darkness with no light, stayed and Tia tried to fight it. She felt she was trying to keep her humanity. Then one day these awful growls of hatred at the sight of something or sound of something came. This was cruel sarcasm with violence in her thoughts. Overtime, these words became the norm and her mind created a new person that her flesh, spirit, and soul did not fight. It was her agreeing with the negativity. She knew she didn’t want to in her heart. She knew she didn’t agree, but this negative personality grew. It became powerful and an adversary inside her. Out of all the good, there were only the bad. Out of all the love, there were only things to hate. This new negative and hateful became the norm. She looked back in her past and wondered if that woman Mabra was even there. She searched day and night on social media sites to find that woman and could not locate her by her name or face. She even looked on her husband’s page and could not find a single picture of Mabra. And as Tia spiraled more and more into inhumanity, coldness, this strange horrible personality, she felt she was being destroyed. She saw her face fading into someone else in the mirror, and grew tired, constantly fighting, constantly angry, constantly negative and afraid in a deep dark hole.

Johnson sat in a locked room amidst sketches of a beautiful woman. He had waited for this woman and had found her. However, Tia was not who he needed. Her body yes, her mind and personality no. So, he laid the traps, sacrificed, fasted his lust, drank the blood, conjured, and bound Tia’s flesh, spirit, and soul into a hole. She must lose herself. Her soul and spirit must die. The suffering, the doubt, pain and shame successfully created in her, placed Tia into a mental hole in which she could not ever get out. In time, he told himself, the beautiful soul, once cast into hell, Mabra, the woman he loved and lost, will take full possession of Tia’s body, her mind, and push her weak soul away. Mabra was the young woman he had loved ever since they were teenagers, murdered and a murderer, whom he helped escape from Hell and promised a home. He provided her flesh, as he promised. He provided a home, as he promised. He gave her adoration, as he promised. Now she must do the rest. Soon, he thought, soon he will see Tia return to their home, as her, beloved Mabra, and they would continue their lives together, as he stared at her pictures and the sketches of her face.


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