"Into this void, came anger, and it too gave her energy." 

Gayle Arrowood c2004  

 

Terina hurried out of her apartment onto the patio, wearing jeans and a blue sweatshirt. The dark Taurus, which her ex-husband bought because he was born in mid-May, was the first thing she saw.  Not again, she thought.  He follows me everywhere and tenses me up. 

 

On second glance, she thought her ex-husband looked like the attractive man he was when they met on a park trail in another place long ago.  That gorgeous man with a swoop of curly black hair, lashes so long she could see them from here, and those wide muscular shoulders.  For one moment she felt a twinge in her stomach; he was such a good lay before we married.

 

Coming back to the present and determined he wouldn’t stop her, she stepped under cover of the slender trees, whose branches flared like an umbrella.  Depression, like she’d had during the marriage, settled upon her.  Body heavy, her shoulders drooped a little.  Once at the sidewalk, the sun cast its full radiance on her.   And the warmth of this spring day, after the record-low freeze of the past winter, eased her spirits enough to keep her going to the car.

 

Shadows behind her now, she unlocked her yellow Cougar, got inside, and turned the ignition producing a roar; she wished she had that much energy.  It reminded her of the sound she had to practice for her Kung Fu classes.  That also called for a lot of energy and helped reduce depression.  But it didn’t help her to land a kick on target.  Still, she kept up Karate because she needed exercise and felt fabulous afterwards. 

 

The booming of the engine reminded her she better get going before that asshole in the Taurus decided to come to her car.  Once she married him, she’d discovered he was as brutal as he was dark, tall, and smart.  The Peace Bond was almost eight months old; he just ignored it, and the cops always let him go.  He was also an ex-cop.  I wish he were ex-alive.

 

Then she backed the car out of the parking space, soared up the slight hill, on her way to the park.

 

He followed her and parked his Taurus on the opposite side of the street.  Both climbed out.  He remained on the sidewalk across from the courthouse.  She ran to the nearest concession stand.  The smell of that barbecued chicken filled her nose, and she just had to buy some. 

 

After buying four pieces, she meandered through the crowd, wishing desperately to lose him.  Some people were in suits and dresses out on a noon break, and others were attired as she was.   Soon she found her usual place: bushes setting beside concrete steps leading to the circular area where the band played.  On previous visits, she’d glanced around constantly because he would suddenly step-out and scare her if she didn’t keep track of him. 

 

But for some reason, today, she simply ate, let the jazz race through her mind, and everything reminded her of better days.  Though she felt unusually good, her right eye twitched because she knew he was near.  She didn’t let it bother her, not now.  The cloudless sky, the warmth of the sun and chattering of the crowd made her relax and feel good. 

 

Then she noticed the bushes.  How many times have I sat here and never noticed the fir branches filled with dead oak leaves.  Yanking each one out, she crunched it in her hand.  Its stiffness pinged her palms, then she held her right arm high in the air and let the fragments float with the South Wind.  With each bunch of leaves that she crumbled and let fly, she felt more energy surge through her and depression flying away with the leaves.  Into this void, came anger, and it too gave her energy.

 

And each time she grabbed a leaf, she muttered, Clint is dead, Clint‘salive...until the very last: He’s dead...no more dead leaves remained within her reach.  And in her mind, she fantasized him lying on the ground dead.  How fantastic, if it would only come true.

 

After an hour or so, she glanced around and saw him nowhere.   Do I really have a chance to get to my car without a scene? She asked herself.  So she chanced it.  The remains of the chicken tossed into a nearby trashcan raised her spirits because she imagined the rest of her fear was thrown away with the chicken.  A chicken-liver, she was no more. 

 

Making her way through the maze of groups between her and the car, she watched her sides and back so constantly that when Clint appeared in front of her with a knife, she jerked up and back a foot or two. 

 

For the first time since her marriage, she wasn’t afraid, nor did she think.   While jumping back, she was already raising her leg and crunching his knuckles, a blow that jabbed his hand back and up.  Immediately, she stepped between groups chatting merrily during their break, merrily, that is, until everyone heard the anguish, a guttural screech like a wounded animal trapped by hunters.

 

Terina gazed back through an open space.  The knife stuck in her ex’s heart.  Too stunned to sprint away, she stood there like a shocked spectator.  It had happened so quickly, and people had been chatting so intensely that no one had seen what happened, nor was anyone running away.  Within ten minutes, she had slowly withdrawn from the crowd, gotten into her Cougar, and driven away.  Home-Free!

 

Not until that night did her nightmares awaken her to the reality of having killed another human being.  Plus the next day, she read in a newspaper that the security cameras didn’t catch the person who did it because they were so short.  The others who were taller blocked the view.

  Home Free?  She wondered, I didn’t know it would be freedom... and... burden.