Language warning. Potential blasphemy warning. Lack of editing warning.
I believe, in this moment, that if he’s real, God can hear me.
I believe, in this moment, that if God is real, he will grant me this. I believe, wholeheartedly, that I’m owed. That the hatred in my soul is its own kind of power, that anything less than that horrible old cow toppling down, dead, right this second, is nothing more than proof that God is a lie.
Strike down the devil. Do your duty. Vanquish the demon, Lord.
I imagine it the way most children think about their first desire for death: it’s cartoonish the way her imagined hand moves to her chest, then to clutch at her throat as she gasps and splutters and falls to her knees. Her cold eyes- eyes that right now I want to gouge right out of her stupid face- are huge with fear, looking around the people near her as though waiting for them to somehow save her. She lingers there, desperate, for a golden kind of a moment, and then she falls, face first, to the carpet below. I’d heard, recently, that dead people crap themselves, and there’s a cold sort of amusement in watching the back of her overpriced skirt start turning brown.
No one moves. No one dares. Even miles away, they can feel the warning in the air, the realisation that something out there wanted her dead, and interfering might just turn its hatred onto them.
Might just turn my hatred onto them. The bitch has to die.
My brain stutters over the ‘b’ word, remembers my mouth being washed out with soap when I slipped and called my sister that while we were fighting. I can almost taste the purple soap again.
My sister is beside me in the car, and her sobs are so violent I think they shake the entire care. Or maybe I’m just shaken to see her so hurt and broken. My big sister is the bravest, strongest girl I know, and though I’ve seen her cry, it’s never been like this. Like the heart of her has been torn away and stomped. We fight, but we’re protective of each other. When my cousin hit me, she was like an avenging angel teaching him to fear her above all else. Seeing her cry, I want to tear down the world and make the demon pay.
I don’t know what to do, of course, because I’m the youngest in the car, and no one sits you down for a ‘how to deal with an evil psychopath ruining your day’ talk. There’s nothing to say that could ever make this okay. I try to hug her, and my sister throws herself away like I’m covered in prickles. Mum has pulled the car over, is staring at us through the rear-view mirror with eyes that shine like water. There’s a broken look to her that I’ve never seen before. For a moment, I realise she’s pulled the car over not just to comfort us, but because she’s trying not to cry, too. Her hands are shaking white on the black cracked leather of the steering wheel, like she’s holding on to the bars on a roller coaster that’s just started falling downwards.
I might be crying, I’m not sure. The part of me that knows these things is miles away, screaming ‘die’ at a figure who’ll never hear a word of it. I can feel my hands, sharp and jagged. It takes a long time to realise my nails are digging into my fisted hands, that they’re pressed painfully into the seat like anchors.
There’s a demon in the world, and I don’t know how to kill it. Prayer, I hope, will be enough, but I don’t really think so. I’m not that kind of a believer. I don’t know enough horrible things to kill her myself, or even to properly imagine it, though I’m tempted to learn. But if God wants me to be good, he’ll kill her for me. I pray for her to die, to put us all out of her misery. I don’t care how, though a not-so-teensy part of me wants it to hurt her. A lot. And maybe not be quick.
I spend the next few days praying hard and eagerly awaiting the phone call, but no one calls with glad tidings of a slain demon. The next time I see her, I wonder if she sees the truth of me through the polite greetings and responses. I wonder if she can see the hate through her own self-adoration.
I kinda hope she can’t. Not yet.
If God won’t protect us from her, then I will. A divine smiting might have been kinder.
writerlyscrawls 