It’s a normal day for us. He’s summoned up all his anger again, and the calm before the storm isn’t calm at all. The sun doesn’t shine- not to us, because we know there is no light at the end of this tunnel of a dark life. We wait nervously, fearfully, yet expectantly, for we know what comes next.
We hear misery raging through the halls like a subway train, fast and furious with no intention of slowing down. Next destination: my room. His steps are like thunder, loud, booming, and fear-invoking. What seems like forever ends, and he’s there. He’s right there, with a thin wall of wood separating pain from happiness. My mother’s hands are tightly clasped around me, but their trembling doesn’t offer much assurance.
The door bangs and shakes as there was a madman who was locked in a cage, thirsty for freedom. The knob rattles violently and falls to the floor, but the fright of what was behind the door silences all noises but his angry grunts.
There, standing and staring at us with hate-filled eyes, lies a man- no, a demon, for he has never shown anything to deserve being called human- who I reluctantly call my dad. He approaches, and inevitable torture surrounds the air around him. His eyes are set on my mother, whose hidden bruises from previous attacks are going to accompany new ones.
Recklessly, he pushes me away, and all I can see is a storm. There are flurries beating against my mother, a flurry of punches. It lightly drizzles a blood-red rain. My mother howls and screams like a gust of wind ripping off tree branches. At this point, any impact from a subway train would not compare to the damage that was inflicted to both of us.
I can no longer take it, so I pull out my salvation. My salvation, a double-edged weapon that can harm and save. My salvation, a weapon with the ability to cut a man’s life span into mere seconds. My salvation, a weapon of cold steel, but not as cold as my intentions. My salvation, my hidden switchblade, is out and ready to use on the demon in front me, who never acknowledged my presence there. His mistake.
My salvation plunges into him, and the flurries dwindle and stop. The howling wind silences. One more plunge, into his body, into a dark crime, but into a better future, and I see it’s finished. There is one more flow of blood-red rain- the one thing this demon shared with humans- and now my hands burn brightly with it. The blood on my hands is no royal blood, no Caesar’s blood, but he was a tyrant, and I a Brutus to end his tyranny. Without warning, my mother’s screams ring out again and rival raging winds. I look at her, caught red-handed of an act of love through murder, and see rain flow from her eyes- pure, watery rain. The raindrops fall down her cheeks, some of it joyful yet the others terrified. The sun’s light seems to shine now from the end of the tunnel of my life. It seems to shine. When all you’ve known is darkness, subway lights and sunlight don’t look any different.
