I’m back from my trip. What a trip. I will write lots about it but time is getting away from me these days. I haven’t even unloaded the car and I’ve been back a week. I’m in the middle of doing a lot of stuff including going through over 1,000 photos! I’ve begun to post albums in Facebook. If you know me there, take a look. There are probably another three albums to come, maybe four. I’ve promised myself I will finish that part by Saturday evening.
I am also getting ready for NaNoWriMo which begins at midnight on the first of November. I plan on attending a midnight write-in that night. I finally think I know what my novel will be about. No real plot yet. I have a nameless Main Character and some other less-than-main-characters to help her out. Not a lot more than that but that’s okay. I don’t usually begin with much more of an idea of where I’m going and I tend to finish with at least a day to spare. It will happen.
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This is a cause that is near and dear to my heart, as most of my readers know. I am posting a fictional story that I originally wrote in 2001. Some of you may have read it. The idea is not that you “enjoy” the story but that you think about it and others like it out there. I’m thinking this story may actually play a big part in my upcoming NaNoWriMo novel. You will find it below.
The Small Girl
The small girl sat by herself, clutching the thin gray blanket around her shaking shoulders. No one noticed the silent tears on her ashen face. No one noticed the low, melodic humming coming from the child or the vacant look in her round green eyes.
Everyone huddled around the mother. Everyone huddled around the man. Everyone huddled around the police and the paramedics. Everyone paid attention to everyone, except the small girl.
No one saw the child slowly get up and walk away. No one noticed her stooped shoulders at all. No one even looked for her.
The small girl walked down the street alone, she walked with emptiness in her eyes, not seeing where she was going. She walked into the quiet, lonely street.
She had been asleep in her bed when she’d wakened to the sound of screaming and crying. She turned over and tried to go back to sleep, knowing that it would be hours before the noise stopped, placing her flat pillow over her head to drown out the noise.
The screaming didn’t stop. The crying continued. When it got louder, she finally got up and walked to the door of her room and turned the knob slowly. The screaming and the swearing grew louder as she opened the door just a crack.
She saw through the narrow slit in the door that her mother and the man were in the kitchen. There were empty beer bottles on the table – the beer they’d had at dinner time. Next to the bottles were full glasses with the dark watery liquid that she could still smell in her own hair, after he’d thrown it in her face when she’d asked him not to yell at her mommy.
She knew that if she went out there they would both yell at her to go back to bed and if they were very angry, they would hit her before she could run away. She wanted to know what was going on. Why was her mommy crying this time?
“You know I didn’t mean anything. You know I only love you. Come on, you know there’s only you!” It was her mommy’s voice. She wasn’t crying anymore. She was pleading. She wanted him to believe her.
“Don’t gimme that shit! I seen you looking at him. You always look at him like that when you think I’m not seeing you. I seen you. You were eyein’ him up and down. You know it.”
“Ah, come on, Baby. You know I was only trying to make you jealous. You’re the only one for me. You know that.”
“Get away from me bitch! You know you dun it with him. You don’t know what love is. You just get that itch between yer legs and you jump on anything that’ll scratch it.”
She heard her mommy laugh. She was moving toward the man with her arms out to hug him. Then she heard the chair hit the floor hard. She couldn’t see her mommy anymore.
The small girl closed the door and ran back to her bed. She put the pillow over her head again. She knew he was going to hit her. Or they might end up hugging and kissing and then they’d go to her mommy’s room and she wouldn’t be able to sleep. There would be too much noise, but at least the screaming and yelling would stop. She hoped they wouldn’t be too noisy this time. Maybe they’d fall asleep before morning so she could sleep too.
But it hadn’t stopped. Her mother had screamed. He had yelled at her to shut up. The house had shaken.
The small girl got up again. Something was different this time. She could feel it. She quickly and quietly walked to the door and opened it wider. She could see her mommy on the floor. He had hit her. She wasn’t moving. He was standing over her with a broken chair. He had hit her with the chair.
She watched as he kicked her mommy. “Git up! I’m hungry. Git me somethin to eat. Git up. You know yer just faking it. Come on. Git up!”
Her mommy still didn’t get up. She moved a little bit. She moaned. But she didn’t get up. The man walked over to her and kicked her. Her mommy groaned and moved a little. The small girl was so scared that she could not breathe. Would he keep on kicking her? Why didn’t her mommy get up?
She watched as he kicked her again and again. She couldn’t stand there and watch. Her mommy wasn’t moving anymore. She just made little sounds and her body moved from side to side as he kicked her.
The small girl ran out screaming, “Stop it! Leave my mommy alone! Stop! Don’t!”
The man turned on her and pulled his foot back, preparing to kick her too. She was faster than he was and so she moved just in time and his boot had missed her. He cursed at her. She was afraid that he would come after her. She ran back to her room, closing and locking the door. She heard him laugh behind her. She heard him slam another bottle of beer on the table top. She heard her mother moan and begin to move again.
The small girl opened the door and saw him kick her mommy again, just as her mommy was going to start getting up. She ran out and tried to help her mommy get up but he ran between them and pushed her away. The small girl hit her head as she fell against the wall. She didn’t cry. She got up and went to help her mother who was still trying to get up.
He pushed her away again and slapped her mommy. “You love her so much? Why? Because you don’t know her. That’s why you love her. But you don’t know her. She’s a tramp. Is that what you wanna be too? Are you gonna be a tramp too? Come on! Help her again and I’ll kick you too! Come on!” He kicked her mother again, only this time she had moved and he kicked her in the head.
When she heard his boot hit her head, the small girl ran to her mommy’s room and opened the drawer next to the bed, where the phone and the alarm clock were. She pushed everything aside grabbing until she found the gun her grandpa had given her mommy the last time the man had beaten her. She grabbed it, almost dropping it and ran back to the kitchen pointing the gun at the man.
“Stop! Stop! Leave my mommy alone!”
“Oh you’re gonna shoot me now?” He laughed at her and kicked her mommy again. Her mommy wasn’t moving anymore, just making low gurgling noises.
The small girl moved toward her mommy. She reached for her, trying to pick her up, to get her out of the way and out of the room … to safety. She tried to reach her but she couldn’t without getting close enough to him so he could hit her again. He laughed as he moved toward her, cursing and coming closer to her every second.
The girl reached for her mommy and then she heard the loud noise and she felt herself shake, then fall against the wall. She didn’t hear him anymore. She didn’t hear her mommy either. She couldn’t hear anything but the loud, sharp sound of the gun, then the sound of his body slamming against the wall. She heard him sliding down the wall, finally resting on the floor. She saw his mouth open and she imagined that he had groaned, but she could only hear the loud noise ringing in her head.
Soon she was outside in the cold. Someone gave her a thin gray blanket. She watched as the ambulance came and then the police. She watched as they pulled his body out, his face covered up with a sheet. She watched as the men worked over her mother, putting a clear plastic mask over her face and a foam collar around her neck. They strapped her to a board and as they put her on the ambulance, the small girl turned her empty stare away from her mommy, pulled the blanket around herself and walked down the dark, lonely street where no one saw her. No one noticed her. She walked in the dark. She stared into the night, not seeing it. She walked into the street not seeing it.
No one saw the red sports car hit her, not even the small girl whose empty eyes saw nothing and whose cold, lonely body felt nothing.
Can’t wait to hear more about the trip … glad you’re doing NaNo again, and thank you for posting the story. It’s simply not possible to raise awareness enough about domestic violence and the damage it does, especially to children.
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Also many thanks for posting the story. I hadn’t seen it before. It does make you think.
My department this quarter sponsored a local shelter for abused women and children. We got lists of needed items, and we went shopping for the women. Yesterday we all wore purple in honor of Domestic Violence month. As we sat around the table talking to one another, we realized that every single one of us either had been or knew someone who had been or was a victim of domestic violence. What did the director of the shelter tell us? 1 in four women will be victim of domestic violence. Again, thanks for raising the awareness.
Also, I found you on FB and just sent a note to add you as a Friend. Looking forward to seeing the pics.
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I had not read this before either. Good writing. You pulled me along until the end. I hope you will send this somewhere for publication. It deserves a wide audience. You are such a wonderful story teller.
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You know, it was just one of those stories that happened. I was on the computer one day and the TV news was on behind me and I heard one story about a domestic violence case where the batterer had been shot AFTER his victim was unconscious and the police were trying to figure out who shot him. Then about three minutes later, there was another report about an unidentified child that had been found on the side of the road after being hit by a car. And everything clicked into place. I didn’t stop writing until it was finished.
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