In the deep of the night

The Secret Keeper’s words don’t usually keep rolling around in my head, but today they have…says Queen Procrastinator.

In the deep of the night,

When the bold stars stare,

And the moon swings low

Over fields, beware,

For the harm that is done

When the sky is dark,

In the folds of the sheets

Before calls the sweet lark,

And the acts without thought

For the long years ahead,

Will come back to haunt you,

Where lost innocence bled.

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Microfiction: End of the struggle

Rain slashed their faces and the wind tore at their coats, but she urged her mother down the road. At either side, the ditch had filled and the road was rapidly becoming a raging river. More than once the woman stopped and her chest heaved with the effort. She looked like a dog at the end of its chain, her daughter thought. The downward path had twisted and turned more times than she had counted, and the house was behind and above them, its dark eyes turned to the valley below. She felt its presence even though it was long out of sight among the enraged forest trees, and she feared she would never be free of it.

She felt the rumbling before she saw the car. Her mother stopped in her tracks, trembling with terror. Headlights, a livid yellow, ploughed through the slanting rods of rain and blinded them both. A car door slammed.

“Get in,” he barked, his bulk black and massive against the light. “I said, get in!”

Her mother whimpered, her limbs jerking to obey the command. The daughter overcame her reserve and grabbed her arm.

“No. We’re not going back.”

She said no more, didn’t wait to see the effect of her words, dragged her mother out of the beam of light and past the bulk, the car, the old life. The woman moaned and hung heavy, a dead weight, but her daughter was merciless, like her father. She knew what was coming, couldn’t avoid it, almost didn’t want to. The fist hit her mother in the face and she sunk to her knees. It was what the girl had been waiting for, dreaming of for so long. She bared her teeth in a grin of desperation and desire and pulled the pistol, his pistol, from her coat pocket. The light was in her eyes. He was just a black mass against the headlights. But at point blank range she couldn’t miss.

The sound of the detonation was lost in the first crack of thunder as the storm broke overhead.

Microfiction: Struggle

This is for the Daily Post prompt.

They stand side by side in the road, not touching though they have only each other. The trees, caught by the gale bend and sway, shrieking in anger. The mother turns and looks back at the house through the quaking pine branches and she leans, almost imperceptibly, her back to the wind, letting it catch her steps to push them back the way they have come.

“No!” her daughter screams above the furious wind. “It’s finished. We’re not going back.”

The woman hangs her head, hiding her face as if sheltering it from the lashing rain. Her daughter knows better, knows that her mother’s eyes will be full of tears.

“He’s a pig and you know it!”

The daughter stands firm against the gale, glaring at the black clouds and the squat house where the windows are dark. She waits but she will not give her mother her arm.

Reluctantly, the woman turns away from the house, her home, her life, bracing herself for the force of the wind, the storm, and her daughter’s anger. Stifling a sob, she takes the first step and feels herself break with the effort.

Beaten dog

Through the glass

I hear

the rattle of violent words

the dull thud of beating fists

a muffled whine.

I look in time to see

the dog’s eyes implore forgiveness

for the unfathomed fault

the muzzle that stops his tongue saying

Please stop.