Sidetracked

Alethea: Failures

- Somewhere in Germany -

The unmistakable crack of knuckles against skin rips through the silence of the kitchen, followed by the telltale thud of collapse as Alethea hits the floor, her legs sprawled out behind her in haphazard angles. Her hand is against her face now, and she can't remember how it got there. Some sort of immediate response, I guess?

Footsteps plod away from her, shoes on tile, and she can't decide which has hurt more; the fist she just caught with her cheekbone, or the fact that the fist belonged to her husband, Guillaume. He walks off into another room, and soon she hears the television click on, the faint sound of her son's crying dancing down the stairs to fall upon deaf ears.

No, not entirely deaf. Alethea hears it. She just can't be bothered to do anything about it. Let him cry. It's me who should be crying. And yet... I'm not.

She runs her fingers up her cheek, crossing the split in her skin as she finds her eye and dabs at it. Nothing. Dry as a bone. Tears are for the weak. Alethea suddenly remembers the sound of her father's voice, dabbing at her leg with cotton balls after a nasty spill on the playground had left her with bleeding gashes. And you're not weak, are you? No, you're my strong little girl, Alethea. A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth at the memory, then quickly dissipates with the pain of the tight skin. Now, get back out there and show that playground who's boss.

Alethea places her palms down on the cool tile of the kitchen floor and works to lift her tired body upward. Her back crackles and pops and her hips grind together, a few strands of her black hair casting over her face as she finally gets to her feet, her son's wails growing impatient and troubling.

Still, she can't bring herself to be bothered with him. There's something else that must be done first. Does that make me a terrible mother?

As if ignoring her son's crying would be the only time she'd asked herself that question in the last week. She'd pondered the same thing as she was sitting in her boss' office being fired only a few days ago, and once again when she'd decided to keep her firing a secret from her husband. Not for reasons of fearing his reaction, but rather her own choice to keep some parts of herself hidden for as long as she could.

In the several years they'd been married... Has it been 7 or 8 now?... she'd started to feel as though her every thought and secret was exposed, that there was no longer any mystery left to her. At least none that Guillaume cared to uncover. And without mystery, Alethea pondered just how much longer she could remain interesting. To him or to anyone else, for that matter. What draw could she possibly have if not for being enigmatic and cryptic? It certainly couldn't be solely based on her looks. Not that she wasn't capable of turning heads, but rather she had no interest in those so shallow as to only notice her by exteriors. Someone needed to unravel the yarn ball that was Alethea, and Guillaume had long since given up.

So in holding back her firing from him, she had hoped to pique his interest once more. Reigniting an old flame with a whiff of what had initially brought them together. Instead, she had caused him to accuse her of having an affair. Her response, shouting back "Maybe I should have one, since you seem incapable of fucking anything but a corpse!" has been the last words out of her mouth before he'd hit her.

That's no excuse. You're never supposed to hit some you love. Love shouldn't hurt. The thought passed through her mind as she walked slowly over to the counter beside the fridge, and she couldn't figure out their origin. Certainly not her own mind. Maybe an episode of a self help program. Or maybe it was a meme she's seen on the internet. Either way, she chuckled a bit. That only applies when love is still a part of the equation.

It had been years since she'd felt anything close to love for Guillaume, or from him for her. Staying together for the kid and all that nonsense. A lot of good it had done any of them. Now she had a rising welt on her face, the kid was upstairs crying and traumatizing himself, and the husband she was supposed to be staying with was in the living room watching TV. Staying together had been a mistake.

Having that kid was the mistake.

And immediately she regrets thinking such a thing. She had never intended to be a mother, never had any maternal instincts, but one oversight later and she had a son with a man she should have left instead of getting pregnant by. It wasn't his fault. It was hers.

He keeps crying from upstairs, and finally Guillaume's chair squeaks, and his footfalls come closer. "Since you're not going to handle it, I guess I will." and he's gone, taking the stairs as slowly as he can in his disdain for exhibiting any type of fatherly love.

Alethea's eyes follow him, his tall, skinny frame disappearing beyond the wall as he nears the top of the stairs. At one time, she had thought of him as handsome, intellectual and poetic. It had taken only a few months of living with him to realize he was none of those things. But finding herself isolated in a foreign country, she'd run out of options of what exactly she could do about it, and had made the best of what she had. Something she still regretted.

She leans forward, her elbows hitting the counter as she presses her forehead into her hands and sighs heavily, her breath fogging the granite of the counter. The pain is starting to set in now, a migraine creeping its way into her head like an unwelcome houseguest on a day you just want to stay home alone. I should probably get some ibuprofen in my system before it becomes unbearable.

She stands upright and reaches for a nearby drawer, pulling it open and looking inside. Old spare buttons, salt packets and a few nails and screws. Junk. Nothing she needs. She slides it shut and goes for the one above it. Silverware. Forks, spoons, can openers and knives. Still not ibuprofen.

She starts to slide the drawer shut, then stops, pulling it back open and looking inside. Her eyes scan over the metals, and before she knows it, her hand has curled around the handle of the biggest butcher knife in the drawer. The blade makes a metallic sound, like a sword unsheathing, as she draws it out and inspects it, the silver surface covered in water spots and the very tip broken off. She furrows her eyebrows, and for a brief moment, a fleeting thought finds its way into her mind. I wonder if one of us ate it and didn't notice.

The thought is gone as soon as it came, and soon her mind is back to thinking thoughts she shouldn't be thinking. Terrible, awful thoughts of what one can do with a knife. She twists the handle and turns it over in her hand, and before long, a smile has found its way onto her face.