The Wakening Short Story

The Wakening

I wake up to the sweet smell of pancakes wafting throughout the house and sounds of laughter coming from the kitchen. It’s a sweet sound, one I rarely hear anymore. I decide to go take a look at the bright sounding commotion, but when I turn the corner into the kitchen the sound disappears and all I am able to see is my two children lying on the kitchen floor, blood everywhere. I try to move over to my children, but my husband stood in front of me laughing hysterically. Then he stopped laughing and turned to me threatening me that I was next. Before I knew it, he was coming after me. I couldn’t move, all I could do was scream for help, but there was no one around to help me. Before he could get to me, I woke up. Cold sweat was

Sometimes I would wake up screaming, and my husband would be next to me trying to calm me down. I was in therapy for this type of stuff, my mother thought it would help me, but I was handed medication on my first visitation to the therapist. I used to think that was so ridiculous, people going to see someone for help with their problems and all that person does is hand you medication and tells you it will make all your problems go away. It always made me think to myself, why pay so much money for happy pills that you need a prescription for when ecstasy or crack will do the same thing? Then again I guess the comfort of having someone there who only sees the outskirts your life make me people feel comfortable and happy. Maybe, that’s when people needed help they went to friends or family. My husband wouldn’t let me see or talk to talk to my family though, he claimed it was bad for my health. I always wondered if they cared or thought about me and how I was doing, but I just assumed they probably moved in with their lives just like the rest of world

Instead, I kept quiet and let the hour fade away until my husband took me home and started to beat me because I am just wasting money by never talking. I never could do right in his eyes. The house was never clean enough, the children never quite enough, and I never talked enough. Sometimes he would remind me of the days when I used to talk all the time. Acting like he cared, acting like he wished he could back to those days, the days when we weren’t married. Sometimes I wished I could still go back to those days. Maybe I would’ve had the opportunity to pick up my bag and leave him, but then again I was in love with him, and he had never hurt me before we were married.

Now, I have to plan a fabricated story to why I have bruises all over me, just in case people decide to be nosy and ask. The bruises weren’t the scariest part though. That part was when I thought one day he would come home, rage in his eyes, and shoot the children and I. It would be like in the dream, one-minute laughter would be filling every little corner and space the air, and next it would be silent and still, blood everywhere. Sometimes I thought I could leave, run away and disappear, but he would just find me and I didn't have enough money to support the children