An end to the Evil

She walked down the first nine of the soft gray-white carpeted stairs that were covered in dog and cat hair in the creases. The walls were stained yellow from the nicotine in the cigarettes smoked consistently in the house. With one hand on the waist high, wooden, polished, handrail on the right side of the stairs, the other held a basket of as much of her clothes that she could fit, she looked out the window on the landing for what she knew would be the last time. She saw the grass and mud stains on the imperfect white fence. The fence tops of many of the posts had been knocked off by one of the twenty-four horses and one mule that stay in the green grass pastures with weeds waist high and course enough for the animals to avoid eating. She looked back to the task at hand, she passed the small, tall, wooden stand with a small, black plush bear. She walked down the remaining nine stairs, landing her foot on the smooth, hardwood floor.

Rounding the corner into the kitchen with her head down she saw the pink smooth tiles that line the kitchen floor with cat litter scattered across each cubic foot tile. She moved across the kitchen, reached across the marble counter with glass rooster knick-knacks. She grabbed the white three-foot charger. She smelled the open wet cat food cans sitting open the counter to her left. The aroma of the smoke burned her nose and travled into her lungs. The five foot nine inches, red hair, blue eyes, small waist woman whom had been half the core of her deep routed anxiety and depression screaming in her ears. Even in this moment her ears were flooded with screams of “how can you do this to us” and that she was being “selfish.’ The woman looked into her eyes and said with hatred and smite, “You cannot take your car with you, and you may not take the phone either.’

After this she kept her eyes on the floor as she muttered that the phone was paid with her own money. Fear consumed her body. Her muscles tightened and her slack jaw clenched. She wanted nothing more than to be out of the smoke-stained, pet invaded place she had to endure calling home for the prior six years. With her heart racing faster than the words escaping the malefic woman’s mouth, she heard nothing but the pounding of her heart over the screaming.

When she looked up, her eyes laid upon the blue suited police officer standing next to the son of the malicious woman. Next to them stood the tall black man in a suit that she knew and trusted as her vice principal. Lastly, her eyes landed upon the woman who was simply a bug that had crawled into her mind and began eating around. The insect ate her emotions, and when it was time for the insect to defecate, its feces remain rooted deep in her body in the form of depression, sadness, anxiety, and overwhelming need for clarification on the simplest emotions, reactions, and choices. The insect had changed her life forever.

As she made eye-contact the only sound that escaped the insect’s mouth, was ’why.” With this, she had turned and walked out the door, passed the wooden table and under the ’Drink More, Talk Less” sign hung by wire above the door. She breathed in the fresh air into her saturated lungs. It was over.

It was not over. The woman followed her out the door. Not only was the woman screaming at her for all her wrong doings this time, but she was also screaming in her own defense. Bringing unrelated topics to light in order to further guilt and persuade her to stay. She stepped onto the porch, ears being blasted with all the good the woman and the insect had done for her, and how horrible of a person she is if she continued to leave. She stepped off of the brick porch onto the wooden steps, and into the grass of the yard she played in and grew in for the last six years. She saw the white wooden, twenty stall, long barn with green roof, hoping that the animals would be okay without her. She looked over to the pen where the overweight, dog that could easily be mistaken for a giant stuffed teddy bear laid. She remembered all the times she walked through the snow and rain so he could be happy that he got his walk in. She remembered wearing two ski-masks in weather so cold it felt as though if you stuck out your tounge for too long, it would freeze off then and there.

As she was ready to round the corner to the car, she heard the words she was not anticipating, “If you leave, don’t bother coming back.’ Before this very moment, she had no idea that this was exactly what she needed to hear. For the first time that day she rose her voice and said without looking back, “I won’t.” Her face relaxed and her shoulders sagged from the release of tension that had built through the experience.

With her last words, she walked back around the corner, stepping from the soft grass onto the gravel of the driveway. She placed the bin of her clothes into the back of the white, school-owned SUV. She placed her hand on the cool handle of the vehicle, opened the door, and sat on the clothed seats. She watched the horses in the field and wooded area that has always been fenced off on the opposite side of the driveway, took a deep breath smelling the clean air of the fresh car, and sat back as they exit the property that she will never step foot on again. With the pot holes deep enough to sink the vehicle dramatically, bouncing her and her support team up and down as they exit, she finally realized that she is free from all the bad. It was finally an end to the evil.