“Silent Screams”, Item # 1317059 conti

“Silent Screams”
Item # 1317059 continued

The Nightmares

“You can stop crying. All that does is make me mad. Stand up.” How did he honestly expect her to stand? Her head was reeling. After hitting the floor three times she could hardly breathe, let alone stand up, but she did. From the corner of her eye she saw it coming. Her mind screamed at her, “Don’t tense up. It will be worse. Ugh!” His steel toed boot hit her in the abdomen. As she bent over in pain, the urine ran down her legs and made a puddle around her bare feet. His knee came up and smashed into her nose. She felt her feet lifting off the floor as she flew backwards. The right side of her head smashed against the cabinet behind her. Somewhere in the distance, someone was calling his name. Maybe, just maybe, he would stop now.

He stomped out of the room saying something that she could not comprehend. The ringing in her ears and the pounding in her head made it almost impossible to know anything that was happening around her right now. She knew this feeling would last for a while, but had no idea how long. She never knew. She sat there in the floor until she heard his footsteps again. She managed to get up and head towards the back door. Maybe she could get outside before he could get back to the kitchen.

Outside she stumbled across the yard towards the pony pen. The barbed wire caught her blouse and tore at her already bruised back as she climbed through. If she could just get to the hay shed and rest for a few minutes she would feel better. The smell of urine was strong in here. She didn’t know if it was from the pony or from herself; but she knew the blood she tasted was her own. Her entire body shook with pain. She crawled onto a bundle of half eaten hay and rested her head in her hands. She felt the pony nuzzle the back of her head. He had given her the only form of affection she had known in years and now was no different. Could he tell what she had just been through?

It was dark when she finally woke up. The pony, standing by her side, shifted on his feet just slightly as she sat up. Her head throbbed. “Daddy will be gone by now,” she told her four footed companion. Her father had worked graveyard shift at the coal mines for as long as she could remember. The blessed, peaceful nighttime was the only reprieve her family knew from his rage. Family, what family? They had all scattered when her mother died. Only she and a younger sister were left behind. The others had taken any opportunity to get out. She didn’t blame them for leaving. She didn’t even blame her mother any more. She was beginning to understand just how good death must have seemed to a woman who was constantly beaten, whose husband had girlfriends who picked him up at the front door; a woman with five children, no job, no money, no where to go, and another baby on the way. But still, part of her hated her mother for leaving her behind.

She had to shake off these thoughts and get back inside. Supper had to be cooked. She went to the smoke house to get feed for the pony. After she emptied the rest of the bag into the trough, she dipped the now empty sack into the water bucket and tried to wash her face with it. She wiped her eyes and mouth. Her cheeks and neck still felt sticky but she didn’t have time to worry about them. She could hear the voices from the house now. She really had to hurry.

Her legs were weak and trembled as she walked across the yard, but she did not dare give in to them. As she opened the back door, the voice of her dad’s girlfriend assaulted her ears. “Where have you been? Your daddy’s going to kill you! You haven’t even started supper. I had to clean up the mess in the middle of the floor where you pissed! I’m not your maid. I’ll teach you.” With this, the woman backed her into the wall and started rubbing her face with the yellowed cloth in her hand. The urine; it was the urine from the floor. Strange, but this didn’t bother her as much as should have. She was just too tired. Besides, what was she going to do about it?

After supper, dishes and laundry, she finally laid down to sleep. Christmas vacation was over. School would resume tomorrow; school, her refuge from this hell. She would be glad to get back to her seventh grade class. Had it only been five months since her mother had died? The nightmares and the beatings made it seem like years. She dreamed again; the nightmares. Would they never end?