Power and Lies

One

"My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it."
-― Charles Baudelaire

Her parlor was full of smoke again, Freya realized. It was the third time this week that it had happened, the smoke from the nearby factory had flooded in through the pane and permeated her parlor, choking her as she tried to rest and read. Begrudgingly she rose to open the windows, hoping the spring air would clear it out as she coughed once more. She hated it here. Hated everything about the industrial area that her husband had forced her to move to so that he could be close to the factory job he had managed to procure. At the start she had been happy to make the move, happy to support him, especially given his struggle to find himself employment. Now she just found herself bitter with each cough filled breath she took.

Her mother had prepared her for many things- how to run a household, how to keep a man happy both in her kitchen and her bedroom, and how to raise children. She had taught her that her entire life would be in the service to the man who asked her to marry him, and from there life would be glitter and gold. She would be fulfilled. And for a while, Freya had to admit, she was. Happiness could only exist so long when she was living for another person, she had learned. Her husband moved her to this blasted city and told her to sit and read, and read she did. She escaped into a thousand stories and lived a million lives every day because the one she was in choked her harder than the smoke from the windows.

The door creaked open downstairs and she stood to her feet. Her husband was home from work. Lee was a large man, his muscles well developed from work and bulging slightly under his clothes. His eyes were the color of obsidian and more often than not she found herself staring into them trying to figure out his mind without any success. He was not a mean man, but his warmth did not extend far either. When they were first married she was so deeply in love with the aloof individual who had sworn she was his life and love and now she felt when she looked at him that his face was that of a stranger she was meeting anew every day.

He dipped into the room a scowl on his face and his fingers woven into his brown hair. "I am home early," he spoke. His voice was low, sounding irritated. She nodded although it was not necessary- he was not looking anywhere near her. Only towards the mantle where the decanter was set filled with amber liquid she had a sneaking suspicion would not be there in the morning.

"Is everything okay?" He wasted no time to pour himself a glass instead drank it straight from the container and wiped his lips. "Has something happened?" She prompted once more.

"Yeah I would fucking say so," he growled before sitting on the small lounge near the fireplace. "It's those damn Peaky Blinders again. They think they can just come in and take over things and we all just have to listen." She was familiar with the Peaky Blinders, led by the Shelby family she knew wherever they were she was not supposed to be. And that if they decided they wanted something, well, they got it. She envied them from time to time. The risk in their life was not without reward, and their reward was not without danger. It was the complete opposite of her caged existence.

"What have they done now?" She tried to hide her curiosity. Lee was not a forthcoming individual hardly ever giving into his wife's fancies and curiosities and she knew to err on the side of caring over interest.

"They've taken over the entire canal they have, now we can't push out the things we need to push. How we are supposed to get out our inventory with those men taking over everything is a complete mystery to me." Freya watched as her husband lit a cigarette and took a deep inhale. "Someone needs to do away with them." She cringed with the ease in which her husband spoke those words, dripped in malice. She never knew him before he came home from the war but his parents often spoke on how different he had come back. But that was the case for most people it seemed. Nobody could see those nightmares day in and day out and come home to sleep peacefully. She would often see him thrashing about in the sheets during the night, a sweat breaking out across his forehead. She had pitied him so deeply at first, but now she simply went back to her own bed and slept. She could not cure him of his demons and he never asked her to try.