Wednesday, 16 October 2013

Insidious Bane

                                       
 We live our lives generally believing that what we see and hear and feel is reality - the only truth - all there is - how misguided we are!


                                               

                                               Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake
                                               Baker’s Mam.
                                               Bake away the Evil
                                               As fast as you can.
                                                Hit it and bash it
                                                And mark it with E,
                                                Then put it in the oven
                                                For the children and me.

                                                Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake
                                                Baker's Mam,
                                                Won't be kept in the oven
                                                As long as she can
                                                Be entwined with the Devil,
                                                And escape with glee.
                                                To torture and haunt,
                                                 Especially me.




 Esther

    I really, really didn’t intend to kill her. I mean I didn’t plan it or even imagine it. I just did it.  In that few seconds of such intense desire to be rid, I grabbed the poker and struck her head from behind like a ferocious animal.   Smash! Get out of my sight!  Smash again! Go away forever!
   I crumpled to the ground just after she did and heard rapid, overwrought breathing.
   ‘ Oh God  she’ll get me now, she’ll really kill me now for hurting her, oh what a bitch I am, what an ungrateful little cat I am, better say sorry, sorry, I don’t mean it.  I know her anger is boiling, I know she will rise up, and I deserve it!’
   But It’s me breathing, it’s me - in out, in out - she’s quiet, not a word, a sound, a movement. I look at her face and as she meets my eyes, there in her eyes, for a fleeting moment, is that oh so familiar look of loathing… then nothing, blank, death.  She’s dead.  She is actually, really dead.
   I’m ecstatic, I simply cannot believe this wonderful act of fate, this luck, this… whatever you want to call it.  She is gone! Oh me, oh my, oh whatever daft thing you want to say, she’s gone!
   No more obligatory ‘phone calls born of fear; no more prescribed apologies for trumped up accusations; no more listening to self-righteous outrages, no more insulting the memory of my Dad, no more listening to lies but too cowardly to challenge them, no more of the most selfish individual one could ever encounter, no more, no more… All this comes to me in rapid images from the past as I stare at her.
    I then scramble to my feet, I pick up my glass of wine, I turn up the music and I dance around the body.  I am on some surreal planet - the adrenaline flowing, beside myself with joy. I have never in the whole of my memory of my life experienced this freedom, this independence and entirety of me; no resentment, no cruel judgments,  no bitterness towards me - my soul is my own! I move gracefully around the figure lying on the floor and I’m so weightless, elegant and light-footed. On and on I glide and seem to float in ecstasy until suddenly I feel quite exhausted.
    Finally I collapse onto a chair at the table in the centre of the room and stare at the body lying in front of the fireplace; the mother who never actually was. Not a true one, that is. Eliza, my mother, the bane of my life. I have got to speak, I have to unburden myself - it is my only chance.


Insidious Bane by Polly Mullaney
http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?type=Print+Products&keyWords=Insidious+bane&x=10&y=5&sitesearch=lulu.com&q=


Myths, legends and witchcraft, are alive and well in Wales; this is why my story identifies with this heritage. This story is entrenched in the legends and myths and physical evidence of the folklore of North Wales. The mystery of the wells, the significance of symbols to be found engraved on buildings, the Pilgrim route and the ever present inexplicable.




Three Kids Gripped By Evil By Polly Mullaney     
Amazon Kindle, Amazon paperback


                                            


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