I am thou, thou are I, from the sea of thou soul I come forth. Pity a man who yearns for their own protection, and become the spearhead that pierce through the oppression! -- Anon Guest
[AN: Thee, thou, and thy are hard pronouns to use. My grammatical arse had to provide a correction to balm my soul: "I am thee, and thou art I, from the sea of thy soul I come forth." I have no idea why, but I can conjugate 'Thee' on instinct. Call it a gift. This is also something possibly three other people on the whole world care about. Also: Offensensitivity warning for depictions of domestic abuse]
Sometimes, you can actually hear the moment when an intelligent being snaps. Sometimes it's just a crack, like someone realigning their knuckles. Sometimes, it's a sound similar to glass surrendering to immense pressures. When Shan snapped, it sounded like a slab of granite sundered by a sudden impact.
"You're right," she said. It was Shan's voice. It was his body doing the talking, but the new being with those words wasn't the Shan who had been progressively whittled down to less than nothing by his abuser. "You could kill me in so many ways. You can make certain the world never knows I'm gone. You can beat me and hurt me and make my life so very painful." His arm moved of its own volition. Striking out so suddenly as if it had forgotten the carving knife in his hand. "You made me need you, but I don't need you."
The knife sunk in. Past clothing. Past skin. Through internal organs and only halting when it was embedded in bone. The creature who was now within Shan regarded it all with clinical fascination. She will threaten jail. She will say I owe her. She will threaten. She will hurt me. Shan was used to it all.
"They're going to throw you to the rapists," she snarled. "They'll use you worse than they use a toilet if they don't chuck you in a crazy house. After all I gave you, you'll be lucky if I want to speak in your defence. You owe me everything, I paid for it all. So what if you get beat around for your fuck-ups? Nobody cares if a weak man gets what he deserves from a strong woman. When I get outta hospital, I'm gonna take what you owe me outta your bones."
While she was winding up to break his cheekbones again, the arm and the knife in the hand moved again. Out. In. Out and in. Out and in. "Bold of you to assume that you're going to hospital."
"They're gonna give you the needle! They'll lock you up forever! I'm the only one who'll protect you. You worthless sonova--"
Out and in. Methodical. Detached. How red her blood. How painful her blows. How vile her insults. How calm his heart.
How cold and silent it became after she fell.
Shan had no idea how long he stood there. How long he stood, staring, as the day turned dark and then light again. For him, the world had stopped when she had.
No more orders. No more Looks. No more swift left hooks.
His face was wet and he was hungry. The knife had slipped out of his fingers somewhere during his SWOD[1] moment.
He washed his hands. He made breakfast for two according to her exacting expectations. He ate his share and burst out crying because she hadn't had any and he had to throw it away.
The force inside him that had freed him from her said, She will never hurt you about breakfast ever again. The other that had wielded the knife said, You are free now. The voice within said, You should get some help.
He had no idea how to do that.
Outside, said the voice. She didn't want you to go outside, so there must be help there. Let's go.
There was nothing left in this place that was his, except perhaps the clothing on his back. Not if you listened to her.
She will never tell you anything is hers again.
Turning the handle to the front door cost more effort than the stabbing. Leaving the safety of the indoors was like jumping out of an airplane.
Do it quickly! Urged the voice within. Now now NOW!
Just like with the knife, his arm moved. His body moved, and he was left standing in the sunshine and blinking at the pain in his eyes. Before this moment, the only choices in his memory had been how badly he screwed up, which would decree punishment by slap or punishment by punch. Now there were three new ones. Left, right, or straight ahead.
Shan kept to the pathways. Something in him still wanted to obey, and the paths provided rules where her voice and the one within was missing. There was nothing else to do but walk, so he walked. Footstep after plodding footstep. Away from the house of danger and death and the destruction of his soul.
He found a park, and a bench. He sat, staring at the birds as they flitted about in the luxurious green grass. The world outside wasn't nearly as mean as the one inside.
"Are you okay?" said a stranger. They had come out of nowhere. They had come into his field of vision during another SWOD moment.
Shan flinched.
"It's going to be all right. I'm not going to hurt you. Do you need help?"
Yes, said the voice inside. "Yes," said Shan, and remembered his manners before a slap came in. "Yes, please."
There were gentle people. Careful people. There were questions. There were lots of questions. But there was also a place that was safe and bright and beautiful and far, far away from people like her.
Shan could trust, he learned, in the kindness of strangers.
[1] SWOD - Spinning Wheel Of Doom. The almost international buffering/loading symbol that has become the modern-day replacement of Schroedinger's Cat. Will the application quit, or will it finally load after an abysmal amount of time? Only observation will tell.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / get4net]
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