Lillian

LILLIAN

A story by Gertrude Currie
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They gripped at her flesh, fingers slipping on clammy skin. She screeched, pushed and pushed, but back they came, grunting, made her stomach throw up on itself.

She ran, stumbled - fell! - came crashing down on a filthy carpet. Supine, naked, her agitated fingers twined her hair, yanking clumps, paranoid eyes flitting, staring to chimeric spaces.
Spit tearing from her teeth, she rose, turned, flung forward - nails were greedy in eye-sockets, her hands locking around a throat, wringing.

THAT CEASELESS ROAR IN HER BURNING BRAIN!

She hissed, rictus-thin lips over bleeding gums.

Felt skin give way, then bone.

Blood vomited from its mouth, spraying stark - so RED, so impossibly bright!

Eyes marbled.

She cackled triumphantly and pitched the form aside, limbs forging an aeronautical display, skull crushing as it thwopped against the wall, smears trailing its passage.

She felt her fingers close around a candlestick, a lamp?

(The other one is larger, isn't it? Louder...Quicker...)

Rasping, jagged breath, she searched her confines, ripping closet doors to stand askew on their hinges. Pyretic probing, ragged, savage bellows with each disappointment, slapped away snakes of mane from her slaked forehead.

She liked school. The feel of her skirt's pleats against her legs, the play of industrious scratching of pencil on paper, tuck money on Fridays and DIY orange juice in her square little bottle that fit snug in her partitioned lunch box. It was yellow and she would sometimes sneak open just a corner of the bandy lid to take a whiff.

Was it peanut butter and syrup today (her favourite!) ...or yucky warm camelkotch?

But, oh, Teacher Olive! - towered above her in demeaning stature, taunting, hurting, shouting, braising thick welts with her steel ruler along the back of Lily's knees as she stood quaking next to her desk. Red ink would scar and score her whiter-than-white pages, her meticulously-practised grammar.

BUT DAD SAYS SHE'LL BE BIG NEXT YEAR AFTER CHRISTMAS AND THEN SHE'LL BE IN

TEACHER AMY'S CLASS!

Teacher Amy was always smiling and she brought cake to school for her kids and she wore pink bubblegum lipstick and never shouted, neverevernosirree.

Liquid squeezed sluggish, fat like lava from her lids.

She hoped she'd see Devon tomorrow! He was 'DOWNWITHCHICKENPOCKS'.

She didn't know what that was but wondered vaguely if he would resemble one when he got back...?

He always let her win playing games and brought her sweets and pretty rocks and those orange 'marrygolds' that grew alongside the field where the boys played cricket.

And she just knew that card on Valentine's was from him! He had gone a funny purple every time she had looked at him that day...

She lurched into the bathroom, saw it scrambling for escape through the tiny window to the outer corridor. Tittering, jeering, her weapon clanging to the tiles, claws gripped its feet, pulling back as it fell forward onto the cistern - an anguished cry! - head shot a ringing echo off the porcelain.

She viciously clasped it by the neck...and turned it to face her.

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<how jealous her twelve-year-old self was when she watched him dance awkwardly with Kelly, the moment he realised she had grown boobs, their night picnic after the Matric farewell, watching his form stretch through the water towards her, bright eyes, the day on the beach that December he proposed - this is our forever, Lily - his voice as he read to her in bed on weekends, drawing silly pictures on her baby bumps when she felt fat, sure hands and strong arms, his hair trailing over her skin as they moved together, twin flames, holding her as he slid into bed after his shifts, that one night that didn't happen, the news by glare of morning, there must be a mistake!

he's gone-he's gone-he's gone-he's gone- he's gone-he's gone-he's gone-

-i'm gone-i'm gone-i'm gone- i'm gone-i'm gone-i'm gone>

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(((((THOMAS!)))))

Still now. Frigid mud in veins. Hands limp.

Her frame shuddered.

Once.

Twice.

Stood impotent as her son issued a guttural whimper and crawled his broken body in under the basin. Greasy mouthflesh clutched her teeth, lips, creaking tetanus jaws. Minutes, (hours?) later she fell to her knees, reached for her son.

COLD, SO COLD! Howling, she gathered him up in her arms, accusation screaming from his stiff pose.

(((((TROY!)))))

Panicked, she moved to the sitting room, found her baby's sanguine heap.

Wails wracked harsh and deep, her chicks against her chest, tears and blood mingling with theirs.

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Ouma was stroking her hair, her breath like strawberries and Rothmans, leathery skin warm and dry against Lillian's head. She stands with her, her sons chuckling, their chubby bodies' comforting weight against hers.

- MY LOVE!

Light splinters inside...

...the thumps were quick, obnoxious pulp,

unexpected obstacles to busy feet...someone shrieked.