Secret Pains

She turned around to run for the bathroom, fighting the feeling to regurgitate her whole insides but her body fell like a ragdoll. Thump! Down to the floor. Lying beside her were shattered pieces of glass. She had thrown a half dozen wine glasses at the fireplace mantle in anger before deciding to take the bottle to the head. Where did it all go wrong? Her heart ached. Her body was limp and broken. She wanted to die. Everything she worked for. Everything she lived for. None of it mattered anymore. Her tears became like a pool of water under every shattered piece of glass. They were swimming- or so she thought-but away from each other. There was no coming together this time. No pieces reuniting. It felt so much like her life. She wept bitterly. The pain was real. Real excruciating pain. As she rested on her palms to brace herself up, she stumbled again. Everything in the room was unfocused. Whisking the tears from her eyes, she bore her weight on her feeble hands and tried again. No, she was too weak but she was determined. Nothing was going to keep me down she thought. Never ever kept me down before. Normally she was right but this time no matter how hard she willed herself, she was too far gone. The truth was, getting up was the last thing she really wanted to do. It was fast becoming a resolve, that the greatest medicine for her pain was death. She thought ironically about how life could be so cruel. Wickedly cruel. How did she become its next victim? What had she done? Where was the strong Josephine who always managed to get it together and keep it together? Her mascara trickled in her eyes, causing them to burn. Fresh tears kept falling making everything in the room a blur. Get up Josephine! Get up! She staggered across the living room to the mirror and there it was. Looking right back at her was an image that was unrecognizable. The Josephine she knew was gone and wasn’t sure when she left. Was it a few hours ago? A month? Or over twenty years ago? “Oh God!” she screamed. “Oh God!” Her voice gained strength and then weakened into a tremor. Buckling under the weight of her emotions, she fell to her knees and began to scream again and again and again. A surge of raw, uncontrolled emotions blazed through her body as she ascended to her feet. Josephine moved erratically across the room, throwing everything she could find. Turning over every cushion and pillows. Ripping every drawer from the end tables. A maniac was what she felt like. A maniac that had every right to destroy everything that was in her way. She was alone in her madness and grief and there was no stopping her. Back and forth across the room. When she was about finished, she stood in the entryway directly in front of her mother’s picture on the wall. Trembling in her stance, fear and anger grew. Her eyes were swollen and her throat was sore. Sweat was bleeding from her pores. Her breathing was deep and heavy. Standing there, hypnotized, weak, empty, angry and crazed, she took a step closer and stood in front of the picture. She wanted her to see what she had become. “Look at me, mama!” She patted the sides of her face believing that she would be more recognizable. Wiping the smudge from under her eyes, she took another deep breath and just stood there. “Look at me!” she blared as her stare grew intense. It didn’t take long for another eruption. Josephine broke out into a nervous laughter that lasted only a moment but there was no laughing it away this time. No drinking it away. No sleeping it off. Everything she used to do before to suppress every one of her pain, wasn’t working anymore. “Why me?” she screamed as she clenched her teeth with her chest heaving up and down. “Why did he have to take my son from me? Why?” She asked all the necessary questions but no answer came. What did she expect anyway? All of this was her doing. She was certain that this was her punishment. Josephine staggered her way down the hall ignoring the constant ringing of her cell phone that was going on for the last five minutes. There was no need to turn around and go back. She knew what she was going to hear and preferred not to. She had other plans. What she was about to do next would be unspeakable for her but she wanted the pain to stop. Tonight it had to end.