James Mandarin

Ripped Curtains

The curtains have been ripped.

The sofa has been turned upside down. The blue ceramic vase lies on the floor, broken into large, sharp fragments. Blood slithers across the carpet, covering the tiny shards of clay on the ground. I'm holding a canvas. A paintbrush is in my other hand.

A magazine is on the floor, half opened to page twenty. Ten ways to make your husband love you, it reads. Other magazines litter the floor. Mum's beloved books have been ripped in half. Aunt Rosemary's clock, which has been passed down for four generations is on the ground, broken and bent, near the wall.

Dad has his hands around mum's neck. She's white like marble, pale like the inside of the ceramic vase. She holds a bottle of liquor in one hand. The other is around his hand. Veins budge of out of dad's skin as his muscles constrict. He reminds me of one of those body builders at the gym with ripped arms and a bottle filled with steroids.

"Let me go," mum wheezes. She needs air.

"I should kill you right now."

Mum laughs. It's forced, bitter. "You wouldn't do that."

"Tell me why?"

"You need me." And with that, she hits him with the liquor bottle.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Dad slumps and falls to the carpet in a heap. Mum grunts and straddles him. She lifts up the bottle and swings it at his head again.

And again.

And again.

The bottle breaks on his head. Mum grunts like an animal. She's going to kill him. God, she's going to kill him.

She's mad. She's an animal. She's losing it.

I keep on watching.

She finally tires out and throws what is left of the bottle on the ground.

I finally find my voice. "Did you kill him?"

She turns to me, startled. "James! What are you doing here?"

"Did you kill him?" I ask again.

"Go upstairs James."

"You're mad."

Mum throws her head back in a fit of laughter. "It runs in the family."