Last Tuesday was a day slightly different than any
other day, well maybe in many ways a bit too different.
I’m not sure this was what Charles Bukowski meant by
saying “find what you love and let it kill you”. I mean, I really did love him
so much; without any doubt, but in all honesty, I just wasn’t ready to die yet.
Thump… thump…. thump… those were the familiar sounds
I heard in my head as it felt as though my heart had been surgically moved from
the left side of my chest to the frontal lobe of my brain. My head was hurting,
as it should; from the way it hammered down on the floor bouncing on its
concrete surface once or twice, after receiving the dirtiest slap of my life.
We had gotten into another fight over a silly argument, and as it has always
done, escalated into a one sided boxing competition, with him always emerging
as the victor. I could never really overpower him, as he stood an extra foot
above me when I am standing; also, his body was like a temple of toned muscles,
from his shoulders all the way down.
In a studio apartment, the walk from the bed to the
washroom wasn’t much of a distance but it felt like a thousand miles as I took
each and every step with utmost carefulness and limped alongside the plastered
wall that led to my destination. I carefully examined the bruises surrounding
my face on the mirror that hung gracefully above the basin, gently padding them
down with a handful of cotton wool dipped in a pool of medicated spirit. The
cuts stung with each touch, which made me wince in pain.
I downed a cup of mouthwash into my mouth; swished
its content around, felt its burn and spat it out after its thirty seconds
expiry limit. Settling myself down at the edge of the tub, I unlocked my phone
with the fingerprint lock feature, dialled a number and it rang once; someone
picked up. After the conversation with the person, I allowed the phone to slide
out of my hand and it crashed down into the floor; I was oblivious to its
dismantled fate. The window was slightly opened but the wind gushed in, I could
feel it’s cold chilly hands as they caressed my unclad body, sprouting up goose
pimples all around my skin, my nipples were stiff and sore, the wetness around
my upper thighs was now dry and sticky, I couldn’t bring myself to stare down
at it, I reeked and smelled of his sweat. He raped me, it started out as an
argument, and then into a fight and finally subsided in a non consensual sexual
act. I felt helpless and terrified as he held both of my hands with one of his
and violently violated me sexually, he disregarded any sort or form of
formality that entailed the traditional morals of properly courting a female
and wooing her into his bed. I tried to scream but his other hand was around my
throat, like a python finally circling around and squeezing every ounce of
breath in its prey, took the voice out of my lungs, I felt his grip tighten
against the walls of my lungs, killing slowly; my vocal chords. His tireless
workout days at the gym were finally paying off. The tears flowed down my face
like water from a faulty tap, and occasionally I would manage a word or two,
pleading with him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen. He was a ravaged dog, a possessed
demon, hungered and angered at me, at the same time. The feel of his hands
against my cheeks were as hard and rough as they could ever be. He slapped and
cursed as he rocked up and down on me, and his weight wasn’t something my frail
body could bear any longer, I knew he was going to kill me if something wasn’t
done immediately.
I stepped into the tub and twisted the tap’s knob
and relished the moment as spurts of warm water touched my goose bump affected
skin. The water trickled out of the shower like drizzling rain before it really
started to pour, so with a sigh of relief I started to slowly massage my skin
with a medicated dettol soap and I reminisced back to how my mother would warn
me about the consequences of divorce. She would sit me down between her laps as
she weaved my hair. Her hands were as gentle as they could ever be. She would
pick, part and weave various strands of hair into a beautiful pattern, whilst
she lectures me about the do’s and don’ts of marital life. She would say once a
woman is married to a man, she is meant to stay there till death do them apart,
also she is obligated by moral rights to abide by and bid to all the man’s
rule, she is never meant to question his authority as he is the head of the
house and thus, he knows what is best. She would tell me her culture is against
it, and so is her religion. The only conclusion I could come up with to make
her stories and opinion acceptable to myself was that she unluckily manage to
find herself living in a man’s world, and although I was given birth in it
also, I had no plans to live in it.
I could hear the knock on the door as I sat on the
edge of the bed all dressed. I had applied some make up on my face, to mask the
bruises on it. The room was still a huge mess and I had not the strength nor
the zeal to clean it up. I approached the door and opened it, an older man and
a younger one stood in front of me. Looking at him I realised he must have been
the one I spoke with on the phone some minutes ago, so I led them in.
The younger one entered first and with his eyes, he
did a quick sweep of the room, I followed his eyes and noticed each stop they
made, first at the toppled bookshelf with books scattered all around it, and
then at pieces of broken glass cups and ceramic plates laying aimlessly all
around the floor, a torn dress and underwear atop the reading table situated at
the corner of the room, and then finally he stopped, as his eyes caught what
they were here for. He looked back at me with awe and rushed over to the side
of the bed.
“We’ve got a lifeless body laying here” he alerted
his older colleague.
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