The Wronged

by spootasia tomoe

chapter 1- cursed

--

Dark night; no moon; trees whispered warnings. Clouds dark and forbidding rolled in unwanted. There was a flash in the distance and a clap above that echoed in the mind after its substance had faded away deep into the night where sacred thing happen.

Two made love that night in the darkness. In the safety of her home she courted him, guarded from any second thoughts or hypothetical consequences by the thick walls. They spiraled down together, mixing into one another as the sky, water and land did about them to form a bright heavenly light, darting down to scorch the earth and smite whoever happened into its path. Another rumbling thunder shook the window panes in their frames, shaking the lover’s very existence that shattered as they continued, disregarding the wail of the wind and the pounding of the rain trying to pry their attention from each other.

Many months later a child is born. A young creature of bad omens, unwanted, pain and neglect in the young one’s future; poverty and death in the future of those who will deny it any love. The future could have been aborted, all of the agony and sorrow evaporating in the presence of a simple pill, a simple operation. Easy, cheap, illegal. The law forbade the child’s end who would end those who bestowed upon it life.

I was that child. Seething, I look down upon the land that I was brought into that wanted nothing more than to throw me back. What do you do in a world like that? What can you do?

--

Dark night; no moon; the baby cries out of hunger. The mother won’t listen, the father is gone. A lonely howl from outside, one lone coyote, drowns out my wail. Maybe if I wasn’t born, mother mightn’t of had all those bruises. Maybe if I wasn’t born, father wouldn’t have become a drunk; wouldn’t have had to lash out at something, someone, all the time.

Do you know what it’s like to feel so unwanted? To think, “Why am I here? So purposeless, meaningless,” since you were old enough to think in whole sentences and capable of what they call ‘rational thought.’ I could have been something, they said. Could’ve, but wasn’t.

He comes home. He stumbles, kicks the chair out of his way. Thank the lord that not a child or skitterish cat was on that chair. Father always said it was my fault. That I was nothing, am nothing, will become nothing. Came from nothing, embodied nothing, turned to dust and was once more nothing. An environment suitable to breed great minds and witty, somber, morbid poets indeed. What did I ever write about? Pain.

Maybe if I wasn’t born, the pain would have ceased; never started. Maybe father and mother would have gotten along better. They said they never wanted a chilled. Then why did they have to have me?

So he lashes out and out and on and on. He said it was her fault. She cried and later said it was his. Together they cornered me and claimed it was mine. Mine? How quaint, how loving. The perfect family, yes, it is mine. Yes, mine alone. Now please, let me go and die in peace.

More children come. Together we make our way to school in dirty rags and torn pants. A smudge was on the youngest’s face. I wiped it off with my thumb as we went. It came back. There were always smudges, always marks. Eventually I stopped caring. Love was all for nothing, anyway. I was nothing, am nothing. They were nothing. Nothing at all.

Father came home. He had another fit. Maybe his breath wouldn’t have had such a smell if only I wasn’t born. Maybe I wouldn’t have known the color of blood if I wasn’t born.

The children became my responsibility. I had to take care of them, protect them. I failed. They were always hurt and hungry, dirty and hit. I had no money, hardly what you could call help.

Maybe if I wasn’t born, father wouldn’t have been fired for needing to take care of his unstable wife. Maybe mother wouldn’t have been all but excommunicated form her family. Maybe the grandparents I never met wouldn’t have forced them to marry. Maybe more time would have given them more responsibility for everyone else. More love.

I failed. Maybe the youngest wouldn’t have died in fever. But, they all died. I died. Killed, died, ended. A poet they said. What lies. What liars. Maybe they wouldn’t have lied.

Some days I sat and stared ahead. I simply wanted to stop existing, to fade. Some nights I did. But I always woke up. I always hated mornings. Especially Sunday mornings. Especially church. Especially god.

Maybe if I wasn’t born, I wouldn’t have hated god so much. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Did it matter? No, not really. After all, I was nothing, am nothing and will forever be nothing. Did nothing ever matter? Never.

Another night of crying and lashing out. The children were in my bed, huddled close around me, covering each other’s ears with their small hands, clear eyes shut tight. I kept my clear eyes and ears open, clouded mind taking in the pain from below. I wouldn’t have been so familiar with pain if I wasn’t born. Maybe the children wouldn’t have been so familiar with it either.

Father came into the room and stared at the children and me. They didn’t see him, still clutching fearfully to my shirt, but I looked on without expression. We stayed like that for a while and then father stomped up to me and hit me hard across the cheek for not looking away. The children felt me jerk and looked up in alarm only to catch a glimpse of their father’s retreating back. He would not have hit me if I was not born. Perhaps he would not have hit the children, either, if only I was not born.

I had never loved. Maybe there was a little for the children, but most often I was devoid. Never loved my parents. Never fell in love. Nothing can’t love. Nothing doesn’t know how. Perhaps I could have felt love if I wasn’t born. Maybe I could have loved them, appreciated them, possibly been thankful towards them, father and mother, if only I wasn’t born.

I never grew old. I never had a chance to change. Father and mother had their chance. It was over. There was no reason for them to live anymore, except maybe to hurt us. Hurt me. Hurt the children. I hated them most when they hurt the children. And I hated everyone else for not seeing.

What’s that? A bruise?

I fell down the stairs.

What happened there? How did you get such a gash?

I tripped in the night.

Oh, all right. Feel better, then.

Feel better. Feel better… I hated them so much for not seeing, not caring, not helping. I didn’t have enough strength for the children. I needed someone else, anyone else. But there was no one. No one knew, and if they did, then they were just as bad as I was. Too weak to try.

I hated father and mother. I hated god. I hated them; I hated them all. Most of all, I hated myself for not knowing what to do. Would I have rotted away as I did, hollow from all the loathing, seething and anger I could never release if I was never born?

Slowly I lost feeling. I lost myself, a self I never knew, who never had a chance to grow. The children stopped their crying eventually, too. They stopped crying, laughing, smiling, playing. We just sat still. No one talked or moved, because, if we did, we knew the storm of tension within the house, the home, would break and there would be a thunder like the one that had deafened us, too loud to hear or understand, and then the lightning would come and strike us all down. Then the storm would leave but we would all be too tired to use the time of its absence for anything ‘worthwhile,’ or ‘good.’ We would just sit in the rain and stare.

Maybe the air wouldn’t have crackled and stung so with the energy of the oncoming onslaught if only I wasn’t born. Maybe there never would have been any storm at all. And if the storm had come anyway, maybe the thunder wouldn’t have been so domineering and overpowering and maybe the lightning wouldn’t have torn and cut the children so.

Another night of rain and eventually the children went to bed enveloped in misery’s fog. That night, the mist of hate wound around me, seeping from my core and wrapping me in vengeance. The moon laughed; the sky beckoned. The wind told me of my pain and curse, my cure a fleeting desire, unsubstantial, the hope of it shattering like fallen glass, flying in transparent drops.

I crept into my parents’ room, starlight from the open window falling on my feet. Quiet steps slunk to the closet. My arm reached in and grasped my weapon, my father’s weapon, my freedom.

I needed so much that they would not give; could not understand. And the children; all that they needed drowned my mind and sat in my stomach like a lead weight. I wanted to help the children, save them in my own way. Give the children what was lost to all of us. They locked redemption away, kept freedom in a steel cage, tortured rest, a rest wrought with despair and nightmares.

No more bruises or cuts or storms. Only scars. Scars can heal if given the time, if you let them and the children were young enough. I was too old, my chance withered away. Mother and father were spent. They had thrown theirs away.

Perhaps they would have had a chance if I was not born. Maybe they would have had a reason to live and love and care if only—

I stood by the bed, mother sleeping, father out as always. On the table I laid my freedom, careful to make no sound.

I would not have smothered my small mother that night with a pillow if I was not born. Neither would I have stabbed my unsuspecting father with his weapon after he came through the door. I wouldn’t have had to write my brothers and sisters letters explaining the way of things, that this was how it had to be. I wouldn’t have had to tape a request to the door that the young ones not be separated, but placed in the same home. I wouldn’t have had to call the police and ambulances. I wouldn’t have had to slit my own throat before they came. Death wouldn’t have had to feel so good.

It would have been illegal for them to steal the bitterness of life from me. It was illegal for me to steal theirs, but I did. I knew, knew what had to be done. And I did it. For the children.

I wouldn’t have minded being denied life. I wouldn’t have minded being the victim of petty theft for the greater good. No one should have to steal from themselves a relief that their own parents locked away. That the government hid, disallowed. No one should have to break the law for the children, against the children, but sometimes it must be done or we all die.