LILLIAN
A
story by Gertrude
Currie --------------------------------------------------------------------
They
gripped at her flesh, fingers slipping on clammy skin. She
screeched, pushed and pushed, but back they came, grunting, made her
stomach throw up on itself.
She
ran, stumbled - fell! - came crashing down on a filthy carpet.
Supine, naked, her agitated fingers twined her hair, yanking clumps,
paranoid eyes flitting, staring to chimeric spaces. Spit tearing
from her teeth, she rose, turned, flung forward - nails were greedy
in eye-sockets, her hands locking around a throat, wringing.
THAT
CEASELESS ROAR IN HER BURNING BRAIN!
She
hissed, rictus-thin lips over bleeding gums.
Felt
skin give way, then bone.
Blood
vomited from its mouth, spraying stark - so
RED, so impossibly bright!
Eyes
marbled.
She
cackled triumphantly and pitched the form aside, limbs forging an
aeronautical display, skull crushing as it thwopped against the wall,
smears trailing its passage.
She
felt her fingers close around a candlestick, a lamp?
(The
other one is larger, isn't it? Louder...Quicker...)
Rasping,
jagged breath, she searched her confines, ripping closet doors to
stand askew on their hinges. Pyretic probing, ragged, savage bellows
with each disappointment, slapped away snakes of mane from her slaked
forehead.
She
liked school. The feel of her skirt's pleats against her legs,
the play of industrious scratching of pencil on paper, tuck money on
Fridays and DIY orange juice in her square little bottle that fit
snug in her partitioned lunch box. It was yellow and she would
sometimes sneak open just a corner of the bandy lid to take a whiff.
Was
it peanut butter and syrup today (her favourite!) ...or yucky warm
camelkotch?
But,
oh, Teacher Olive! - towered above her in demeaning stature,
taunting, hurting, shouting, braising thick welts with her steel
ruler along the back of Lily's knees as she stood quaking next to
her desk. Red ink would scar and score her whiter-than-white pages,
her meticulously-practised grammar.
BUT
DAD SAYS SHE'LL BE BIG NEXT YEAR AFTER CHRISTMAS AND THEN
SHE'LL BE IN
TEACHER
AMY'S CLASS!
Teacher
Amy was always smiling and she brought cake to school for her kids
and she wore pink bubblegum lipstick and never shouted,
neverevernosirree.
Liquid
squeezed sluggish, fat like lava from her lids.
She
hoped she'd see Devon tomorrow! He was
'DOWNWITHCHICKENPOCKS'.
She
didn't know what that was but wondered vaguely if he would resemble
one when he got back...?
He
always let her win playing games and brought her sweets and pretty
rocks and those orange 'marrygolds' that grew alongside the field
where the boys played cricket.
And
she just knew that card on Valentine's was from him! He
had gone a funny purple every time she had looked at him that day...
She
lurched into the bathroom, saw it scrambling for escape through the
tiny window to the outer corridor. Tittering, jeering, her
weapon clanging to the tiles, claws gripped its feet, pulling back as
it fell forward onto the cistern - an anguished cry! - head shot a
ringing echo off the porcelain.
She
viciously clasped it by the neck...and
turned it to face her.
.
.
.
.
<how
jealous her twelve-year-old self was when she watched him dance
awkwardly with Kelly, the moment he realised she had grown boobs,
their night picnic after the Matric farewell, watching his form
stretch through the water towards her, bright eyes, the day on the
beach that December he proposed - this is our forever, Lily - his
voice as he read to her in bed on weekends, drawing silly pictures on
her baby bumps when she felt fat, sure hands and strong arms, his
hair trailing over her skin as they moved together, twin flames,
holding her as he slid into bed after his shifts, that one night that
didn't happen, the news by glare of morning, there must be a
mistake!
he's
gone-he's gone-he's gone-he's gone- he's gone-he's
gone-he's gone-
-i'm
gone-i'm gone-i'm gone- i'm gone-i'm gone-i'm gone>
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(((((THOMAS!)))))
Still
now. Frigid mud in veins. Hands limp.
Her
frame shuddered.
Once.
Twice.
Stood
impotent as her son issued a guttural whimper and crawled his broken
body in under the basin. Greasy mouthflesh clutched her teeth, lips,
creaking tetanus jaws. Minutes, (hours?) later she fell to her
knees, reached for her son.
COLD,
SO COLD!
Howling, she gathered him up in her arms, accusation screaming from
his stiff pose.
(((((TROY!)))))
Panicked,
she moved to the sitting room, found her baby's sanguine heap.
Wails
wracked harsh and deep, her chicks against her chest, tears and blood
mingling with theirs.
----------------------------------------------------
Ouma
was stroking her hair, her breath like strawberries and Rothmans,
leathery skin warm and dry against Lillian's head. She
stands with her, her sons chuckling, their chubby bodies'
comforting weight against hers.
-
MY LOVE!
Light
splinters inside...
...the
thumps were quick, obnoxious pulp,
unexpected
obstacles to busy feet...someone
shrieked.
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