This Woman

One woman’s death could be the start of another’s life. Only perception decides if any of it matters or not. This woman, who usually has a positive outlook and a loving perspective, took one too many knocks to the ground, one too many wrecking balls to the head. This woman who usually gets back up and faces every blow, decided it was indeed time for change and change brought her to a reality she had neither expected nor avoided. After almost 50 years of dragging herself up off the dirty, bloody floor of existence, she changed her modus operandi and gave Life something to really remember her by…

With a menacing grimace that turned her innards to waste water, Life swung its hand down hard against the side of her head again and again and again. As she threw herself below the blows she felt the pattern of long past tales rise up like ghouls to reclaim their sorry stations. Their lifeless dreams careening zombie-like amid the silken skirts of the hope she’d been hiding herself behind and she screamed. She screamed out the horror of ages. She screamed out all of the long held terrors her society had never allowed to be free. She screamed out the banshee, the whore, the witch, the wailer, the sorcerer, the hydra, the kraken, the selkie, and the siren. She screamed out the dragon, the cyclops, the griffin, the hellhound, and the golem. She screamed out the reaper, the werewolf, the vampire, and the troll, and she sent them all straight back to the hell from whence she had just arisen to bother her no more.

As she lay panting and dazed in the dusty heat of night, she slowly began to feel the rain of blows again and hear the shrill cackles of Life beating her to death with gleeful abandon. She thought of all the times she had sold herself to that bloody pimp Hope and had found herself in the same dusty night over and over again for a hundred aeons and she surrendered. This time she would lose the fight. This time she was done, she had nothing left to fight for or to fight with.

Love had been her companion for so long and Faith had been holding her hand too, but they could do nothing to help her here and now it was her and her alone against Life, and she turned over to welcome the final blow with relish. Let it be done, let it be so, let it Be.

As the mists rose up within her mind to claim her and the croon of the valkyrie called her home, she saluted the ghosts of her past and of the future that had called so seductively to her throughout the ages of battle. She spat the blood from her parched lips, steeled her spine to absorb the energy from the blows, and offered her broken but unified mind up to whatever laughing god would take it from her. She pleaded for the sanity to slip from her quickly and quietly, and she began to laugh as she finally saw Truth rise up like a venomous cobra, expanding beyond belief and strike out at Life mid-swing. Life suddenly stopped in its tracks, it’s fists still curled, its arms still raised, and it’s sick pleasure still twisting its grotesque face into a sneer, as it’s now frozen eyes began to turn skyward. Life began to disintegrate before her exhausted eyes and she wondered why she had not realised sooner that her own surrender had been the key that unlocked the prison that had held Truth back for so long, impotent and powerless. Too late now, she took one last breath and whispered over to Life, “I’ll see you when we get there.” - Juno 2018

Photo by Joe cause @capturingnow 2018.