Trials and Tribulations

The unforgiving sun glared in her face. She groaned as she crawled out of bed and dragged herself to her closet.

It had been almost a year since he left. He never said a word as he packed his bags and walked out the door, taking their daughters with him. She came home to an empty house and a court order.

She was forced to visit a doctor every week for treatment and therapy. She was forced to talk about her feelings. She was forced to write letters and never send them. She was forced to ask questions she didn\'t know the answers to. She was forced to answer questions she didn\'t want to ask.

She\'d never meant to hurt her. She\'d tried to tell them the medication had stopped working. She just wanted her to take her bath. By the time he had gotten home, it had been too late; she was gone.

He paid for her treatment- he said it was for her own good. She didn\'t work- no one would hire her.

She wasn\'t allowed contact with her children. She couldn\'t even go on supervised visits. She couldn\'t call, couldn\'t send letters, couldn\'t even send them presents.

She meant nothing to them. She meant nothing to anyone. To her husband, she was ink in a checkbook. To her daughters, she was a bad memory. She was twisted and broken. She belonged in an asylum.

The days went by and the world moved on. Her children forgot her- her husband continued to pay her way through the insanity.

All the mirrors in her house were smashed. All the curtains on the windows were drawn. Her weekly appointments were the only contact she had with anyone.

She continued to slip. She continued to fall deeper into the darkness. No one had given her a second chance. Deep down, she knew she didn\'t deserve one.

She was a child-killer and a loon. She was the crazy lady whose door had become the neighborhood side show. Every time a little boy wanted to prove himself to a cute girl, her doorbell would ring. Every time she opened her door, she met insults and stones.

On the fifth anniversary of the beginning of her descent into madness, she found a fragment of mirror that still saw what she had become. She held the infernal object in her right hand and stared at the demon before her.

Her eyes, once a bright vibrant green, had become clouded with medication and sunken into her face. Her cheek bones stood out sharply on her gaunt face. Her skin had paled in the years of seclusion. Her hair had thinned and turned gray. Her lips had cracked and shrunk. Dark circles had formed around her eyes from years of haunting dreams and broken sleep.

The days had dragged on, aging her mercilessly and the nights had continued the infinite cycle.

The monster she had been hiding finally reared its ugly head. Jabbing with unnatural speed and an impossible strength powered by rage, she cut out the heart of the madness. With strike after strike, she pulverized the blackened heart of her demon, cackling in sadistic glee as her blood splashed and ran over her hand.

This was the end.