She Will Be Judged: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

At the dinner table that night, nothing was said. Joe was dead of any energy, even struggling to cut his potatoes with his knife. Maria wasn’t eating. She just sat their wide-eyed in dismay at the news she had received earlier in the evening. The other kids ate quickly, including Paul, stricken with guilt, who ate dinner faster than the speed of light so to escape from the uneasy environment of the dining room. Maria was both disgusted and infuriated by the confession declared by her always failure of a son. I knew there was sin in this house she thought bitterly my torture must be part of the sacrifice I must make in order to clean my son of his illness. I know the temptation. He can be healed. She ran through a list of excuses in her mind of what she could do to change her son, to bring him back to normal again. She thanked God intimately for his help that she had at first failed to acknowledge. She snapped out of deep thought.

“ Joe” she nudged him gently to grab his attention, the kids had already left the table.

He slid from his bundle of psychological fatigue and smiled slightly at his wife. “What is it darling? Are you worried?”

she lay her hand on his “no darling, I have to tell you something awful. But it is something we can fix.

“ What is it then?” he gathered attention now, suddenly intrigued.

“ Paul-Paul told me today that he-he” she sighed with annoyance, crushing her fists together in angst “ Paul told me he is attracted to men.” Joe didn’t move an inch, he squinted his eyes mildy, and vocalised his gutted disappointment. “ My boy? A faggot?” He slammed his head down onto the table and regurgitated his fury about his son. “Tonight” said Maria “ You talk to him. We’ll take him to Mr Haynes tomorrow as soon as the morning hits.”

From beneath the thick blankets of her frilly pink bed, Maria overheard the verbal dispute between Joe and her son Paul. Joe expressed his utmost disgust by Paul’s sexual orientation, “ You are sick Paul! Sick! Your letting those demons pervert you with their unfaithful ways!” Paul squealed, strangling his vocal cords with fury. “No Dad! It’s not like that! I genuinely love him!” Maria could hear Joe stomping up and down in the room. The other kids were downstairs, avoiding the situation. Whatever strife that didn’t require their presence, was a relief to their wellbeing. Maria expressed little distraught by the full knowledge that her son was being brutally mistreated with insult by her fed up husband. Joe was tired, and now Paul’s issue was topping it all up. “ You selfish little brat! Your Mother is ill, and all you can manage is to get yourself fucked in the ass!” Joe slammed his fist onto Paul’s desk. Maria thought she heard Paul collapse to his knees in his soft tears of defeat, as she heard a reasonably loud thud from her room. Joe left Paul to sob in remorse for his fatal mistake. No apologies were delivered, only saliva as Joe spat in his son’s face and rushed back into Maria’s room. She was heartbroken by her son’s betrayal and feared the day of his judgement.

Joe edgily slipped beneath the sheets, and cuddled up with Maria. “I’m so sorry for all this my lovely” he cried, Maria didn’t weep, nor did she smile in appreciation for his considerate approach to her dry grief, she merely responded “Just go to sleep”.

A blinding black mist stained her vision. A thick smoky black hand reached out and latched onto her neck. She felt the presence of the gaseous hand and shuddered, frozen with fear. The hand retreated slightly, and she jumped backwards whimpering like a scared kitten, anxiously pulling up her blankets to hide her face. Her husband was still asleep. Maria was shocked. Shocked beyond expression. The hand remained before her, still, as if waiting for her to say something, or do something, but what? She donated herself a couple of seconds to regroup her thoughts and come up with some appropriate way to retaliate.

The hand still stayed, but wavered around contagious smoke of discomfort that she could taste and smell at the tip of her nostrils. She began to hyperventilate, cry like a horrified child. She had no idea what to do. Unexpectedly at the door was her youngest daughter Elizabeth, who, with her wrinkly tired eyes yawned “What are you going to do about Paul Mum?” At that question Maria threw her blankets towards her daughter, now holding her knees, scrunching them up together against her stomach as if to protect herself.

Joe was still asleep, how could he not be awake? She thought confusedly. Elizabeth then abruptly transformed into something satanic, her mouth tilted upwards, her eyes widened in malice. She began to laugh, cackle, cough a throaty giggle of pleasure from misfortune. Maria panicked, screamed, shook almost convulsingly “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING? STOP!” no matter how loud she cried, her daughter continued to laugh and laugh, evoking terror from her Mother. The Black Hand remained, floating stationary in the air. Her daughter moved closer towards her, one creepy step at a time, increasing in volume the closer she got, laughing with more emphasis and sadistic passion. Maria screamed, reaching for the light, struggling to find the switch to her lamp beside her bed. Then Elizabeth, arrived before her and pushed her face up towards her Mothers, grabbing her hand and pinning it hard against the wall. Her daughter spat laughter in her Mother’s face, building in anger. Maria could no longer control her pathetic angst. She was helpless, subservient to this evil slave, her daughter, her daughter whose breath reeked of a decomposing corpse. “ JOOOOOOE!” she called, but he still slept like a child, unable to be alarmed. “ No one is listening Mummy” voiced her daughter sick with malevolence. The hand finally moved, moved to intertwine with her daughter’s hand. They held each other’s hands, as though to say they were combined, or together. The Devil is here She thought The Devil is here The Devil is here The Devil is here she ran out of tears to shed, and then only watched in horror, stuck in her bed, paralysed with uselessness as her daughter appeared to sacrifice herself for the hand. The hand reached out to her daughter’s neck, and instantly while she grinned freakishly, snapped her daughter’s neck, so that Maria could hear the crack of her upper vertebrae. She shrieked in horror, continuing for a full minute. Maria found that she couldn’t move. She was practically stapled into her bed, her hand glued to the wall. She wanted to shake her husband to wake up, but she was stuck. Watching a film of some kind, an erotic snuff film that was her own worst fear. The hand drifted over to her husband, slowly and swiftly, and Maria, helpless just watched. Watched as the hand reached for the lamp on the side of the bed, and raised it, in preparation to bludgeon him to death with it. The hand flicked the switch, and down it went toward her husband’s skull. Hit by hit, his skull caved deeper and deeper in, blood began to leak from the side of his head, and brain could be seen. Maria watched, couldn’t stop herself. She could but couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and why she had no power to stop the hand. But why could she believe what she was seeing? Her husband barely reacted; it was if he had never woken. He was just dead now. She collapsed in tears against the wall her bed leaned against, the hand stayed, as if getting some kick out of her distraught state. “ What are you? What in God’s fucking name are you?” I blasphemed she felt sick. She was going to vomit. The hand left the room.

She was stuck. She could only wait for the cries of mercy and dread once the hand reached her children. Now Paul would suffer the wrath of God’s judgement. She was scared, lost and alone. What was she to feel? Then the suffering was heard. All her children’s screams intertwined with each other, echoing in her ears-the horror of their screeches and chokes on their blood twistedly reminded Maria of a tainted symphony, as if composed by sin itself. What emotion was left to to be expressed? Her children were dying, she heard knives slicing, throats being cut. What could she do but sit? Sit and wait for it all to end. It was the hand after all that did it, the Devil, she was sure.

In a narcoleptic fit-she fell back unconscious to sleep.