Sahdows

Jesus watches from the wall,

But his face is cold as stone,

And if he loves me – as she tells me so,

Why do I feel so all alone?

Memories came as if some mental dam had been knocked down so tidal waves of them could gush forth. They were cloudy, distorted, little-girl memories, but very much real. Making the pictures dance on the walls, turning on the water faucets from across the room, Momma asking her to do something

(shut the windows, it’s going to rain)

And the windows suddenly banging down close all over the house, giving the old bat Miss Black four flat tyres all at once.

There was no denying the memory. No more, now that they were not cloudy anymore. It was harsh and bright but brilliant, like jagged strokes of lighting. The poor little girl, lying half in and half out of the closet, black stars dancing in front of everything, Momma coming back for her, holding Daddy’s long butcher knife in her meaty right hand.

The little girl’s swollen tongue lolling between her lips, throat puffed like she was wearing a bracelet from where Momma had throttled her earlier

(cut it out, I have to cut out the evil, the nastiness, sins of the flesh, o I know, about those eyes, cut it out, your eyes)

Momma’s face twisted, drool on her chin, Daddy’s black bible in her other hand.

Something had flexed, not flex but FLEX, something huge. Momma screamed and dropped Daddy’s bible,

(Good, that was good)

Something dropping on the roof, the house beginning to throw its furnishings around. Momma dropped onto her knees, began to pray, holding her hands up and swaying on her knees while chairs whistled down the halls and the beds upstairs feel over, and the dining room table tried to jam itself through the windows. Eyes growing huge and

(Momma’s eyes, Momma’s eyes)

Crazed and bulging, her finger pointing at her, the little girl

(It’s you, it’s you, devil spawn, witch, imp, devil, it’s you, you’re doing it!)

And then the stones falling and Momma fainting as the roof cracked and thumped, like God’s fist banging down on them, the door flying open, a man in black looking down at them and then –

The butcher knife back in its drawer, the memories fading and then gone. Momma dressed her huge black and blue bruises on her neck and arms. She asked Momma how she gotten them and Momma saying nothing through her tightening lips. Little by little, it was forgotten.

Graffiti scratched on a desk of Baker Street Grammar school in St Rishland.

Ally Miller eats shit!

The classroom was filled with the bodies of teenagers seated at their desks, shouts and jeers and laughs flying around the room. At the teacher’s desk, science equations behind, Mrs Fisher reached into the mounting pile of papers, folding back an excuse slip with a heavy sigh.

“Ally,” Mrs Fisher called out, the classroom being silenced at the name.

Ally jolted up in her seat, eyes and mouth flying open, winching as she expected to be hit, laughs erupting around the room. “Ohuh?”

“You’re excused by your mother’s request. You might as well head down to the library.”

“Shouldn’t people like that by home-schooled?” Mia Guardian asked, twirling her bleached blonde hair around her fingers, the smacking and chewing of gum in her mouth obvious.

“Like what?” Mrs Fished quizzed, Ally scooping her notebook and textbooks in her arms, red erupting on her face, keeping her eyes downcast at the floor as her chair scraped against, standing up.

“You know, creepy religious people.”

More laughter and snickers echo around, and Mrs Fisher rolls her eyes her students. Kenny White stuck his arm high in the air, waving it around like a flag pole as Ally shuffled her way towards the door of the classroom, her steps shakily.

“Mrs Fisher?”

“What?”

“I’m a creepy religious person, can I be excused?”

The laughter, snickers and jeers intensify as Ally escapes, Mrs Fisher grumbling, the door slamming closed. Ally whipped her eyes and her running nose with the back of her cardigan covered hand, intense, raging, pain building up on the right side of her head, just above her eye. The lights flickered and dimmed, before sparking off internally, Ally walking without noticing to the library in a sniffling mess, the rest of the students peering out of their classroom in muted shock at the lights.