Broken Angel

Short Story originally written for my English Language coursework

Broken Angel

 

Pain and loss define us as much as happiness and love. Everything has it’s time and everything ends. This is the story of how I died and how in death I was set free.

 

Embraced in the darkness I was safe, embraced in the silence I was safe and embraced in the enclosures of my mind I was safe. It wouldn’t last. It never does. How could it. He enjoyed it far too much. He enjoyed being my tormentor, enjoyed being my puppet master and enjoyed being the breaker of spirits. He broke mine in a single evening, all he’d tried to do had come to fruition in one god forsaken evening. They say there’s an innocence that lies in childhood that you only experience once, I had yet to see. If that is true, the innocence of youth had been denied me the day my oh so loving father came home from the pub completely inebriated. They say Gin is the mother's ruin: I don’t know about it ruining mothers, but it sure as hell did me.

 

I could say that when the sun rose and the clouds scudded lazily through the rose tinted sky, that the day would be like any other, that it would be the same inane interactions that took place every day, that everything in my pitiful excuse of a life had stayed the same. But it hadn’t. The routine I had come to know had been shattered and that scared me more than anything he had ever tried to do. With routine I knew what to expect, with routine I knew what would happen before it did, with routine I was prepared. They say that in times of great peril your senses are heightened to almost supernatural levels, I can safely say that this thesis is very much true. I knew something was terribly wrong moments beforehand, they say that the heightened senses allow the chance for you to escape with your life still intact. I never got that chance. I never got anywhere close. From the moment I was dragged into the lion’s den I knew...My time had come.

 

He whistled merrily as he walked through the front door and that never boded well. That had become the one sound I hid from, conditioned to know that it would never end well. The shadows protected me momentarily from a fate I had long since stopped fighting, fighting was however, an innate part of human nature and in hiding I fought.

 

They say even the smallest of lights can shine in the darkness, trouble is, light meant pain. Light meant he’d come to play. Light meant everything its darker counterpart was supposed to emulate. Oh how the light ruined the ignorant bliss I could delude myself with and as the darkness retreated in cowardice from the fast advancing light, my ignorant bliss was shattered as easily as a knife through melted butter. His leering face broke through the last of my protection, with a crazed look in his eyes. The face of my tormentor twisted into a sinister grin that left me not needing to guess what would happen, that was written clearly on his face, as clear as day.

 

Blood fell like rain; tainting the very stone I lay upon, running in twisted rivers, like the recesses of his dark deranged mind. That crazed look never left his face as he took to destroying the very essence of my spirit, of my soul. He never spoke a word to me, never gave any inclination of stopping and certainly never gave any inclination of remorse. Like I said, he enjoyed it far too much, enjoyed the power it gave him, enjoyed seeing me weak and pathetic.

 

Darkness invaded my vision momentarily before ebbing away, I realised I was wavering between the conscious world and the unconscious and not entirely sure which one I preferred at this point. He sneered down at me well aware of what he had accomplished; the fight had gone from me. I knew that and he sure as hell did too. The darkness was pulling me away, embracing me, and calling softly to me. How could I fight that which had protected me for so long? How could I fight that which had saved me countless times? How could I fight that which had become my only comfort? The answer was simple, so simple, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I didn’t. 

 

The darkness laid claim to my soul on that night and oh how I welcomed it with open arms, greeted it like an old friend and embraced it with joy. I was free, at long last free. Free from a world that had taken so much and given me so very little back. He had broken me that night, but in doing so he had done the one thing he’d fought so hard to stop. He’d given me hope, a hope for freedom.

 

Pain and loss define us as much as happiness and love. Everything has it’s time and everything ends. This was the story of how I died and how in death I was set free. My father attended merely to save face, merely to protect his reputation. The cynical expression on his face was enough for me to know that even in death he felt nothing for me, no remorse only unbridled glee. In death he'd set me free. I had finally broken free of the shackles he bound me with, of the strings he pulled and of his crushing hold on my spirit. The inscription on the headstone read �" may your soul be free to fly amongst the stars.    

 

In death I was free, free to fly and oh how I did. Even broken angels can fly.