Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: BORED - Begins 1-11-18 / Ends 1-18-18 (01/11/18)
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TITLE: Worn Away | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ann Stocking
01/18/18 -
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It’d seemed different during their brief courtship, before they’d married, before he’d brought her to the cottage. Before the rules had rained down like stony pellets. Yet the labour was the least of it, for wasn’t toil the weave of life, to clean and heave and gather and carry?
The pellets became stones became boulders became walls became a stronghold of condemnation and fear, torment and misery. Now heavy with child, there was no gladness in her, no joyful anticipation.
Nobody visited the lonely cabin, and he never took her to the village, which was not unusual, but when she’d dared ask to accompany him, to visit her kin, he’d bellowed like a bull, stinking spittle flecking his lips as he accused her of wicked intent.
As for church, he’d declared that he himself would be her priest, her spiritual instructor. He sat by the fire while she scrubbed and peeled and mended, his Bible outspread in his lap, rebuking the demons indwelling his sinful wife, praying loudly for divine assistance as shepherded her toward unlikely redemption. He commanded that she address him as Lord, and she did so, the word sharp as poison on her tongue.
And once, she’d whispered a request for yardage, to replace the frayed dress she’d worn to the cabin after their vow-giving, now stretched flimsily over her swelling belly.
“Please...” she’d pleaded guilelessly, and his reply was a smarting slap as he hurled curses at her, the blackberry-hued bruise a reward for her imprudence.
“Repent of your whorishness, thou wanton daughter of Eve.” She’d knelt before him, begging forgiveness and he tasked her to shearing his hair. It was greasy and odorous, for cleanliness was vanity, of no import, to him. A tide of loathing and dread rose within her, and she dreamed of escape. Escape, to a far and foreign place where she could turn her face to the sun without reprimand, breathe without uneasiness, rest without distress.
But how how how?
Fragmented ideas, like birds in the sky, flew this way and that, until they settled, serene, unruffled, all of one flock, in her mind.
Furtively, though he slept, phlegmy grunts erupting from his stringy beard, she rummaged in her sewing basket, and finding what she sought, stowed it in her apron. When she went to the shed to milk the goat, she lifted the stirrup on the offside of his saddle, and there etched with her needle, the needle for stitching sacking, a tiny divot, a hint of a hollow, into the leather of the saddle’s latigo strap.
“I’m hungry and there’s nought but slops, you lazy whore.” He was waiting at the house, and milk splashed onto the stoop as she sidestepped his meaty fist. She bowed her head, fevered eyes hidden, and sliced and cooked and poured and wiped while he recounted her iniquities.
Next morning, she carved a little deeper into the latigo, deepening the minute fissure, and then again that night. Eventually, a pinprick of light winked through the small perforation and she started hewing another. And another. Whittling, sculpting, a lethal latticework.
He’ll not die, she chanted as she pierced the rigid leather until her fingers blistered and bled. He’ll not die, but only fall, at the place where the trail is steep, and the horse will strain. He’ll not die.
The day came when he bridled his brutish and unruly horse, threw the saddle upon its back, mounted the willful beast, and rode away. He didn’t come back, not by dinner time, though stew bubbled in the pot in readiness, and not as twilight descended. In the end, the horse returned, tossing its tangled mane and snorting, saddle-less.
But she was gone by then.
She’d had nothing to gather up, owning nothing but the unborn babe and the tattered remnants of herself. I’ll find the herdsmen, she’d planned, for often she’d heard gentle lowing and cowbells echoing in the hills. They’ll take me to safety.
And without no sting of regret, she slipped through the slim cleft in the wall of the stronghold, as it toppled into nothingness.
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Your writing style and characters are memorable.
Was the double-negative in the last paragraph intentional? I believe it was, but just wanted to ask anyway.