Page 34 of Teddy Bear

Before my eyes flashed a blurry, almost surreal image of my father holding my mother around her thin and fragile neck with his unnaturally long, almost waxy, strong hands. At that moment and for a fraction of the time, she seemed to me like a branch in the wind, so weak, dried up, empty, and stiff that a terrible grip of waxy, merciless hands would break her in no time.

I watched as her face turned a bright red, unnaturally flushed color as her glazed, terrified eyes fixedly stared at me.

Stiff in place like a stone statue, I felt every part of me shake wildly, unable to compose myself or make any movement, overwhelmed by a terrible, helpless, shamefully paralyzing fear that prevented me from doing anything.

I watched my father, executioner, strangle and squeeze my mother's neck, in those short seconds that seemed like a whole, superhuman, agonizing eternity, fearing that this would last forever, this sick, monstrous scene before my eyes that I didn't know how to end.

His body was just a huge waxen, grotesque mask of anger, not even animal, but in some freakish way dead, dehumanized, inhuman; all of him was just anger, contempt, evil and hatred, thrown over the powerless, trembling being of a woman who loved him more than anything in the world, maybe even me.

The surreal scene flickered, completely blurry and distorted before my eyes, as I watched my mother's face now grow paler and her eyes more distant and empty.

Desperate, suffocating, helpless, like a newborn child taking its first breath and crying desperately from the intense pain that tears apart its body, crying out for the warmth and tenderness of its mother's womb, with tears streaming from my eyes, I screamed:

-No! Let her go!

My scream was primal, clean, ugly, loud, and too hard for me to hear as it bounced off the cramped walls of the new, comfortable kitchen.

I wanted it to be someone else's voice, someone else's sob, someone else's cry, and not my childish wailing, so helpless and pitiful that it almost sounded funny.

Broken, covered in tears and drool, much more like a terrified child than a grown woman of 20, an art student and a top dancer, sobbing from the top of my lungs, torn and destroyed, no longer expecting his mercy, I cried out again:

-Let her go!

The mother fell to the floor, pale and gasping for air as strong, waxy hands released her from their monstrous grip.

The man I used to call my father left the room without a single word.

My mother's frightened, worthless, humiliated, desolate look met my tear-stained eyes, strained beyond measure, with hundreds of tiny cracked capillaries under the surface of the thin sclera and the face of a survivor after some terrible catastrophe - martyred and sickly empty.

A sudden heat rushed into my stiff limbs, and I felt my fingers and toes slowly revive as they filled with new, fresh blood.

I was no longer a dead, buried statue; the power of movement was slowly returning to my body.

Now I could clearly hear the still fast and strong beating of my heart, but the space in front of me had become a little clearer, calmer, and more stable.

Mum rose to her feet and breathed deeply, her breath hissing shrilly as she felt the visibly swollen skin of her neck dotted with red finger marks.

I felt something wet on my lower body and at my feet.

I looked down to see a large, wet pool of my urine spreading around my feet, soaking the legs of my short shorts and running down my bare thighs.

In anger and shame that I have never felt in my life, I pushed away my mother's hands that tried to hug me.

-Lizzie!

She cried out, barely able to speak, but I ran out of the kitchen like lightning. I quickly put on a clean, dry wardrobe and hurried outside. I had to get out of there.

The man I used to call my father was probably already holed up comfortably in his room, drenched in cheap whiskey and expensive cigarettes, just like before.

-Liz!

My mother's desperate voice tried to hold me, to bind me to her, to give me a shred of comfort, peace, and love.

It was too late; I didn't need it anymore, and they were the last place and the last people I would definitely ask for it.

This is all a mistake; this is hell, this is a crazy horror movie that keeps playing out its sick script.

This is a surreal punishment from the gods themselves who are testing me to see how much suffering I can endure.