I staggered into the door, crashing it open with my shoulder and holding on to try to steady myself.

The spinning lights were weaving a fairground in front of my eyes.

The bedroom was dancing in a tireless frenzy of uncoordinated, buzzing movement. Even the floor was undulating and, as the waves reached me, I was forced to slide down so that I was suddenly sitting on the floor, my dress hitched up to mid thigh level.

I shut my eyes to try to blot out the jumbled images which tumbled and scattered into my befuddled brain.

The noises began then – zooming, swooshing sounds which came and went like the ebb and flow of the tide on a shingly beach.

More by good luck than good management, I had arrived at my own bedroom door. It was fortunate that I had been invited to spend the night. There was no way I could possibly have found my way home.

Roger certainly would not have taken me. He was too busy chatting up that little bottle blonde with the tarty dress and the bright red lipstick which had smeared onto her teeth. And no doubt later on his!

I could still hear her too loud laughter as she gazed up at him. I could not really blame her. She could not have known that she was only the latest in a long line of conquests.

I knew when I had accepted the invitation for both of us that this is how it would end. It always did.

Shaking my head, but hardly daring to open my eyes, I tried to ease myself back up into a standing position, leaning once more against the door.

Rising surges of nausea hit the back of my throat and I swallowed hard, breathing deeply and feeling the protestations of my stomach.

Perhaps if someone had asked me to dance or even talked to me it would not have been so bad. But they must have felt the walls I had built around myself as I sat near the drinks table and watched them.

The hatred welled up inside my heart and I let out a long, growling scream, hardly sounding human.

I lurched forward into the bedroom and reached out for the dressing table, but as I stumbled the mirror shattered into a million silver, glistening shards.

I picked up a long jagged dagger and turned it over in my hands, staring at my distorted reflection.

*

Later, much later, images of Roger and the blonde, first laughing and then opening her eyes wide in terror and screaming, flickered unwanted before my eyes.

Warm redness, warm sticky crimson blanketed me. I could smell the metallic tang.

A flash of mirror light speared through my consciousness then, but it was tinged with the blazing blush of horror. Red, spurting warm all over her.... and Roger.

What in God’s name had I done?

No! NO! I tossed my head from side to side on the pillow not wanting to remember any more, but the murdering, slicing spear reappeared, stabbing, stabbing!

I sat up abruptly hugging my knees, fearful, sweating, and trembling.

A sudden glint of mocking light pierced the darkness, and there it was lying on the floor.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 05.05.2011

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To my children and their children - with love