This short story is the last of the October series.
Trigger warning: This story features corporal punishment. Though it is a memory with a bit of magical realism added to it.
Content Warning: Blood, Physical Abuse, Beatings, Neglect
If you or anyone you know have been in a similar situation, please know that there is a light after the darkness. And report the bastards if you can.
“Count!” My father barks at me as the belt connects to the palm of my left hand, then the right. The tip where the leather meets the metal drags against my wrist and forearm.
“One.” My breath is steady, almost too calm for the damage that is being done to my body. But this is not new to me, the trick is remaining calm, no crying, no fidgeting.
If I stay stoic long enough, my dad gets too angry to keep going, or my mom will walk into the room to stop him. I know how the game is played, and I have become a champion.
Tears do not move my parents, perseverance does. And in doing so, I prove my worth. That I am brave and worthy of being their child.
“Five,” the pressure increases with every hit, but I am prepared for that as well. This is a chance to meditate, to make sure the next time I will not make the same mistake.
I catalog the twist of anger that ripples across my father’s face. He is doing this for himself, to reinforce his control over us.
For whatever reason, my father doesn’t hit my mom. Just me, though my siblings told me that they all had to go through the process of refinement. And now it’s my time. I think they feel both proud and sad to see the bruises.
But I have learned to cover them with long sleeves and bright smiles. The mask I wear is not for myself, but for them. They are not allowed to see the fury that lives in my bones.
“Ten,” I relax my shoulders, grateful that he didn’t choose my back this time. At least, I will be able to sleep with minor pain. My eyes twitch with the threat of a tear, but I hold my breath and regain control. I cannot look weak here, I cannot look weak anywhere.
A smile threatens to destabilize the tension of this punishment, but I will not let Dr. Suess be my undoing. I have worked too hard for this to let it fall apart because of a silly book.
“Fifteen,” something is wrong. He doesn’t normally beat me this long. His breath is ragged, quick puffs of air, I want to offer a chair and some tea like they taught me. But that might undermine his authority, not something he would allow without more punishment.
When I look closer, he looks different now. His pupils are so dilated that it looks like pools of inky blackness is staring back at me. He looks bigger somehow, as if he grew a few inches tall when I wasn’t looking. And his hands are no longer the deep brown of healthy earth, but a pale gray of sickness.
“Seventeen,” the faint smell of blood lingers in the air, but I don’t feel it until I see the red dripping off the belt before it comes back down on my palm.
I must have miscalculated this beating, because the word, “twenty,” falls from my lips and my mother isn’t stopping him. My siblings aren’t home to step in for me, and the walls look blue now where they were once white with landlord depression.
The muscles in my back and legs twitch in phantom recognition of the pain that will leave more marks on my soul than on my body. The wounds will heal, peel from the old versions of myself into someone that is perfect.
My fingers feel numb, trembling at another hit that might disrupt my future plans as a surgeon. But this too is refinement. If I buckle under this pressure, the real world will eat me alive.
That is when I feel it, a trickle then a storm down my legs. I must have miscalculated, something in me broke before I had the change to breathe deeply and refine my control.
The next hit does not come like I expect it to, instead the bloody leather lays at my feet and my father stands in front of me with small smirk on his lips. He looks content, almost happy that I have pissed myself in his presence.
My mother doesn’t make eye contact with me, but I stare at her, recounting all the times she made him stop at ten.
“Go clean yourself up, and clean this up when you’re done.” He barks once more like a dog too afraid to sink his teeth in a deliver the killing blow.
In a small act of defiance, I clean up the spot where I stood, and then my footsteps that mixed blood and piss in remembrance of my failing.
I will need to change my clothes, and definitely take a cold shower to numb the pain.
When my fingers don’t work like I want them too, a short laugh shutters out of me, just loud and long enough for them to know that I have endured.
The shower doesn’t help, but at least my fingers have stopped twitching, at least the walls look white again, at least my dad is back to his normal height.
I wash the blood run down the drain and I wait for the fury to subside.
Then, like every other time, I breathe in deeply, and let go of the rage as the pain numbs me further into refinement. I will be the best of them, of all my siblings and every single person in my culture.
I will rise above them all, and when I am too far away, I will fall from the heights of my refined soul and being. And I will take them all with me to the darkest pits of hell, because that is who they made me to be.
A monster.
Like what you read? Please consider the following…
Still here?!?
You can also buy my books, leave a tip, read my blog, or subscribe to the chaotic goodness!
