The sin eater 3

The father-in-law

I heard my little car sputtering.  Damn damn damn.  With the kids in the car too. I sat there in the rain with the kids crying. The tears where almost as much as the drops on the dirty windscreen. Their ranting voice vibrated in my ears.  It almost killed the music in my head. Almost, but not quite. ‘Mommy I’m hungry. (I’ve just fed you, my sweetheart).  Mommy why aren’t you going home.’ (Can’t you see the car is stuck). Mommy I’m cold. 

FUCK. Now I’m going to have to call the father-in-law.  I collected my thoughts. What’s wrong with my life that I only have HIM to depend on.  I know the answer to that of course is that my abusive husband has managed to kill all my friendships off. I studied this at nursing college. Let’s not go there now. 

I collect my thoughts and call. ‘Please can you come and help me. I’m stuck in the rain about three minutes from where you live ‘I say. He sighs. I can hear his brain clicking over.  He is already thinking of all the crap he can throw in my face. Now he can put the knife in me and twist it till I can’t breathe anymore. 

He arrives with his little car and a tow rope. The minute he climbs out the car he starts pounding me with questions. There’s no answering him so try to keep quiet as my brain screams the answers. The rain is pouring down, the wind swirling around my body. I can see the rain drops avoiding my body because my answers are vibrating so hard in my head. 

‘Where was I going?’ (I was at the doctor because your son kicked my stomach so hard I’ve had a miscarriage). ‘Why do you take the kids with you?’ (Because they my kids and I don’t trust your son near my daughter.) ‘Can’t you see it’s raining?’ (Duh) ‘I was reading the newspaper and now I HAVE TO come do this.’ (Why didn’t you just say no then, if this is too much effort?)  Here it comes now I think. ‘Why must I do this?’ (Because your lazy drunk son is vomiting on my newly washed sheets).

‘You MUST learn to be more independent,’ he barks at me. (I am trying, you stupid old man, but your son keeps drinking my wages).  ‘It’s because of you that my son can’t get ahead in life.’  (Am I throwing the alcohol down his throat?) He has put the knife in my chest with that last comment and now attempts to twist it. I hold my broken rib and what’s left of my precious uterus. I feel the unborn child leave my body. I gulp. God bless all the little children. 

‘It’s your fault he is like this’. He says. There it is. The truth. These people who profess to love me actually think I’m dog shit. Maybe I am.   I know I feel like dog shit today.  

Finally, he attaches the rope to the car. He is dissatisfied because I don’t answer back. I don’t give him a reason. Do I know how to tow he asks. I am still quiet. He knows my father is a mechanic and I can tow a car in my sleep. Just when my last breath of defiance finally leaves my body he turns around and gets into his car and tows me to his house. 

My mother-in-law has the same questions and I have to relive the same reality. I don’t answer her either. She makes soup as I watch the fetus swirl and disappear. If I tell them what has just happened it will be my fault.  I sit down with them at the table. I spoon the soup into my mouth and swallow because I’m their sin eater.  Much later at home my daughter wants to know why her grandparents always so nasty to me. That night I prayed she will forget. 

The sin eater 2

The wife stood there in her garden surrounded by dead flowers.  Her viciousness had bled out into the air and killed all the flowers. She turned around, her expression sour.  ‘You came’ she said, stating her obvious displeasure.

We were ushered into a small room. We told our hosts of our bad luck of late.  That this situation was only for two weeks until we could sort our lives out. We felt terrible, like a burden. Our hearts were heavy. We were so grateful for any help.  And so, we were reassured that we were ‘family’ and ‘don’t worry everything will get better’.   

   

The truth however was different. As the week progressed the wife got infinitely worse. The controlling, the blaming, the judging. At some stage the wife lashed out and physically hit my husband. My husband, who cannot kill a fly.  We felt trapped and I felt embarrassed. This was my family and this was how they were treating us. I hunkered down. I took it. The blame, the innuendoes, the embarrassment, the shame. I didn’t argue. On the last night we were there I sat down and I ate from her table. I ate because I was their sin eater.      

The sin eater 1

 The father hit his daughter straight across the room.  His huge hands careful to make the marks where no one could see it. Her rib cracked as he lunged forward and hit her in the chest.  Damn she hated the injuries. Painful physical reminders that were awkward to explain and difficult to hide. Her survival instinct took over as she threw herself out of the window.  Thank God they lived on the ground floor. The music in the background, or was it in her head, kept on playing.   The beat pulsating.  Run run run like the wind. 

She ran to the hills.  No one was there and she did not have to upset anybody. THis is where she could cry out loud and tell herself it didn’t happen.  She was sure she was somehow responsible for this attack, but she needed to clear her head so that she could figure out what she had done.  She knew he wouldn’t follow her. She also knew if she stayed away long enough he would calm down and get sober. Maybe he would buy her something. The father would also make something to eat and she would sit there, and eat it.    She ate it because she was his sin eater.

Urgent: Lost writing voice

Looking for my writing voice. No, its not the reasonable voice in my head.  No, its not the unreasonable voice in my head.  Its kinda like the one that is the audience of all these voices. No I'm not delusional nor do I have to take tablets for it.

I wake up in the morning and they are screaming at me. Encouraged by my dreams, the audience reassures the reasonable and unreasonable that anything is possible.  Yet the universe does nothing to help me produce any evidence of it. Its very annoying.

I won't bore you with the details of Freud's tale of the ID, Ego and Superego but needless to say my ego-ideal is the only thing getting me through the day right now. My ID impulsively wants me to go home to the familiar, my ego makes me feel bad through guilt citing very practical reasons and my super-ego is in a flat spin because my conscious and ego-ideal is pitted against each other. 

Here I sit,  on a blue chair, still trying to find my voice.   If anybody has heard it, can they please comment in the section below. I think it was last seen sometime in my childhood but I can't be sure.
I really do not want to open the repressed memory section today thanks. 

My Truth

Every writer wants to go home and write on their stoep, changing the perspective of their life, one word at a time and I am no different. This feeling of finding my corner of introverted self perspection has persisted my whole life and is now threatening to take over my reality. Ive decided that I  am going to call myself a writer because only writers are cursed with those damn perplexing words.

 I sometimes think that words  swallow me up and I live in what seems to be Jonahs stomach.  The walls are lined with words that illuminate themselves so that I am able to pluck them off. I then change them, squash them and bend them; I stretch them and drop my spit all over them. They make me cry with frustration and friction which does not discriminate between old wounds. Words also cause me unbelievable  happiness, calmness and beauty. Some words are heavier whilst some float in the air.  Some words come with pictures and some with smells and some with all those things and more...those connotations drive me insane.  All words have consequences and carry responsibility, even the small ones.

The paragraphs do not behave themselves either. After writing a good outline the paragraphs just go off in a never seen before tangent. The half illuminated words mock at me and disappear. New words illuminate brighter than before to fill up in the tangent and I am left with my dreadful dignity in shreds.I am not satisfied with dutiful words. Lightweight fillers which have no meaning except to fill up the line.

My truth overwhelms me at this point. I'm not a good writer because the words mock me and the paragraphs can't behave themselves. Although my truth hounds me like a starving ragged beast I sit daily grinding away. Words don't satiate my addiction to this form of self-flagellation. This is my truth and this is who I am. My words will tell my truth, blatantly exposing me. My words are bending me to their truth. This is my real truth.