When I put down my cup I realized this wasn’t going to be the last time. I felt the slap as if it was my own. Like somebody hit me in my thighs with a baseball bat. Stomp. Once. Stomp twice. I looked at my cup, paralyzed and silently. How many times was this? I had lost count.
The bewildered woman was running in the field. Running as if she knew something was going to hit her, badly. She kept looking over her shoulder, but I couldn’t see her face; it was covered with her wild and curly hair that was hiding her features. Lest I should see it. The coffee in my cup looked like it was moving. Was this me? Was I dizzy? From the woman’s running? From this thought in my head, here in this house?
Abruptly I stood up. I needed to test this theory. I needed to get away. Get out. Get out of my house. My coat flung to the floor when I ripped of the chair. I landed in front of my cup. That was silent now. Still. Like untouched water. Out, I said to myself.
I plucked my coat off of the floor and headed for the door. I could see the axe. I could see it once. Then I saw it twice.
She fell.
In the field.
My hand on the doorknob. It shivered. I trembled like I was her. Her pain was my pain. And they knew it. The house knew it. Or it’s inhabitants. I am empathic like that. There is no more difference between you and me when you’re in pain, or grieve or any other trouble.
She was on the ground. As I was on the floor. Nailed to the ground like a wooden board. My hand still on the doorknob. I needed to get out. Out! Her hair, her wild and curly hair, like strains over her face. My face covered with tears.
The axes had hit her twice. And I was still where I was. On my way out. This is how they keep me in, I say to myself. They paralyze me with their horror. Planting it in my brain as if it was as normal as thinking about bread. Giving me horrible thoughts to put me down.
It won’t work.
The door flung open like the Red Sea.
And I left her there in the field. On the ground. Hit by two axes that felt as if they hit me.
I was free. It was as still as water in me.