Feelings
Breaking free!
By Emmanuelle
A survivor, she had always been.
She grew up with the sound of loud whispers and raised voices, and of footsteps constantly shuffling in and out of their lives. Her parents were primarily political figures, and as a child, she learned she must raise her voice above the daily din to be heard.
Her elder and only sibling was maybe wiser at this point; she lowered her voice to soft. Everyone then had to bend down and shush all other noises to hear.
But this is not a story about the sisters. Nor of the ways that humans come out with, just to be heard.
This is about the one who broke free.
When the nation’s political setting shifted during the mid-1980’s, she made it like this major shift in her life was just a minor quake. She and her family gathered around them what remained of theirs and themselves, and from the old life, they broke free. Life does go on, and so must they.
Her early marriage was just that: too early. It did not break her when she broke free. They split their properties but there was no splitting the boys. They were hers and his from their birth to the birthing of their own. If there was a war on that issue, the splats were quietly warped out.
But then, she always did fight fiercely for those dear to her life. Even when the dear ones were grown-up and should be children no more!
After she broke free, she went on her merry delightful way, her throaty voice and laughter leading her hellos and trailing her goodbyes. Take our word for this: she found it fun to befriend everyone, even the most bitter of her enemies. Her eyes would gleam its naughty glint, and one simply bathes in her sunshine.
One late afternoon she drove to the city up the winding ways. She was alone, and why should she not be? Sometimes, it feels right just to be alone and quiet by yourself, and let the noise be merely in your head.
When she reached the city, she parked to wait for someone. Seeing that someone coming, she reached over to unlock the passenger door. Instead of the awaited, a strange man slipped swiftly through the door.
Did he demand for her wallet, her bag, the key to her car? He must have had.
Did she quell the fear that rose to her throat; did she try to push him out the door with the sheer thunder of her voice? She must have had.
She was not the quivering, begging, cowardly sort.
He must have not listened to any of her words. He must have had ears only to his wants. He reached out his right arm to her in a facsimile of an embrace. And struck her at the left region of her chest.
When one is knifed, one does not feel the sharpness of the plunge, or maybe even the twisting out when the deed is done. One feels a heavy numbness, like a weighted slam from a closed hard fist, boxed straight unto one’s flesh.
Then the man was gone. She looks down; she sees the blood and the hole from which it flows.
She starts the car. She drives. She sideswipes a truck. She slumps. The truck driver alights to curse; he sees the blood. He drives her instead to the hospital where she was aiming for before the swipe.
She mumbles a name again and again.
There was no surviving this one. There is only a breaking free.
And so she did. And so she did.
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