THE PUPPET

 

I was on the verge of berserk, just a shade off of panic. The unimaginable lingered within the width of a fingertip. Mania gone full throttle. Something is very wrong. Someone is the matter. It’s a blind pledge I take with the unconscionable. Deaf to the chorus, deaf to the chatter.

What will mama think?, is not in the equation.

Mama keeps a clean house, a neat house, a tidy house, a meticulous house…You get? 

But Mama pissed me off one-too-many times and eventually, grown old together, your regret, it manifests - you resent, you despise, because she’s gone toxic…sadistic…dark as the storm, and ten times as fierce. As tamable as a hurricane hurled in off the coast. Not in a romantic way, more in a frantic, tragic…hopeless, way - you seek shelter and hope to ride it out. 

If any other but her life, it was a waste, … but awaited and expected, as it was, just another gruesome outcome, there was no alternative, it was time for her to go. 

You can rightfully call it homicide if one side is psychotic. But both? 

It didn’t register, the splay, until the room had cleared of the swirling demons, that I noticed and knew it was me. No need to explain. It falls on ears uncaring. It crashes the skull of the unthinking.

A puppet is driven away, and put back in the box where he belonged, unblinking.

V