A Life Away

I thought that life was perfect, but at what point did it I say I would give it up.

I thought that life was perfect, as I stared with a wistful sigh at the flickering box before me. Laziness, nothing more, that was what life was. The ads came on and I rose, sparing my eyes a few minutes away from the screen. A few steps slinked me towards the kitchen, a blazing hot cup laden in my hand as I returned to slouch upon my chair. Yes, life was perfect.

My hands began to warm, my eyes began to twitch as they struggled to stay awake in the thickening night. I knew that soon the merges of sound coming would turn into an incessant thickness. But as sleep pushed through my mind, a picture flashed onto the screen.

The empty cup dropped from my hand, rolling to a crook on the floor, my eyes flashed open, my heart flew into a frenzy. And I stared with rising fear at the picture that played into my blinking eyes. A woman surrounded by a mane of brown hair, a bowed head flung with eyes to the floor, and the silent tear, that I knew only I could see, which trickled down her cheek.

My sight turned to the window, where the same reflection stared back at me; our reflection. And the headlines flashed as I strained my ears, yearning to hear the words that flew from the screen. Husband murder prison life. All words that I refused to plant in my mind, as if if I didn’t them then they would not be true. But I knew that they were, as they once again put the woman into the eyes of those that watched, of those that saw her as a murderer. But I saw past all that they said, I found the puzzle in her eyes, the sadness in her heart. And a silent tear trickled down my cheek, as once again, it trickled down hers. The image disappeared, a senseless as replacing the past.

I felt a lump in my chest, the pain rising through my body. My mind ticked over the possibilities of what I could do, how I could get her out of her troubles, but I knew that I was too late. Sentenced today, confined tomorrow.

Her life was now wasted, flicked away into the world of abuse and solitary words. And there was naught I could do. I wanted to go, to grab her where she stood, to take her with me to a world where she would not have to be afraid, where she would not have to run. A world, where the innocent were innocent and so were the guilty.

I knew that she would rather spend a life running, than locked away, and that sent shivers through my spine. Suddenly she would be thrust into this world she was so confined from, a world that she did not know the horrors of.

And she did not deserve this, even if she had done what has put her there. My mind went to why she had to face this punishment, why it was that she must comply. For at no point in her life, did she say she would; at no point in her life, did she say that she would go to prison if another life was lost by her hand. She did not agree to that, she did not sign away her name as she would anything else.

Just being born made her agree. At the tender age of the seconds of her birth, she was already locked into this contract for which she could never leave.

And then my mind passed on those that must die for their actions; those that were sentenced to death for what they did. At no point did they agree with that, at no point did they would agree to death. By doing the deed, that should not be the contract to which they sign themselves away.

Tears were falling from my eyes, dripping to soak on the scarf that surrounded my neck. The scarf that now she would not have the privilege of wearing.

Tired, I flicked off the screen, searching for the cup that had rolled across the room. It was cold in my hand, all warmth drained like the tears that stunted my eyes. I left it in the kitchen sink, promising myself it would be cleaned in the morning.

In the uncurtained window I once again caught sight of myself in the glass. The mane of hair, eyes flung, the silent tear. And once last though passed through my mind before I pushed all thought from my memory; at what point did I sign away my life?