A Chapter from SIMON’S SONG By N.L Kumalo (click to view the video trailer).
It was Tuesday night when Sheila first heard the words. Oh, she’d thought the words before, most folk do; but she’d never really considered it, not in a real way before that night. Well, almost never.
What she knew, what she had always known was that they were bad. Bone deep, dyedinthewool, B.A.D. Wilful, stubborn, spiteful, and meanspirited to boot. They, all three of them bullies since toddler hood, her precious triplets, sometimes, she swore they stank of evil. They were identical in every way, one egg evenly split in neat thirds, which even her doctor had said was unlikely to the point of impossibility, but there you go. Other people were fooled by them with their perfectly blond VonTrapp faces, with their naturally neat hair, and warm blue eyes. Proctor, Princeton, and Price, even their honey blond good looks mocked her, she of the gypsy, (her mothers words), skin and too close set eyes complimented by what could, with great generosity, be described as a complicated smile; they were their fathers creatures entire.
Not that he gave a shit, he’d just banged her once, drunk as a lord and twice as rich, he’d passed out right after. A friend of a lousy friend of a coworker at a goddamned office Christmas fucking party.
“Hum motherfucking bug,” She thought testily, smashing the car into park on that fateful Tuesday eve.
It cascaded through the night, right up and into her window, blowing off the river. The stink made her gag and reel, she staggered slightly in reaction as she opened the door and tasted wrongness in the air. “Jesus weeps!” she thought “that reeks like Hell,” capitalizing the “H” in her own thoughts. Blinking through watering eyes, fighting her gag reflex the while, she savagely barked her shin on a tryke getting out of the car and unthinking hauled in a breath to shout an obscenity into the uncaring ether, but the curse caught in her throat held there by the oily, fetid reek that assailed her
“fuck” Sheila coughmuttered as she made her sore, sickened way to the front door fumbling with her keys.
For her part, she’d hated them as soon as the nurse had foisted the squalling pink bundles of disappointment on her in the nursery. Her resentment only grew as they did, and it didn’t help that her mother had used their birth as an opportunity to move into Sheila’s life and apartment. Running roughshod over her every thought and idea.
“What kind of woman gets knocked up by some guy she doesn’t know?” Was a popular refrain, “ A girl alone can’t raise one baby, never mind three,” was another.
“Thank god your father isn’t here to see this,” rounded out the litany of sufferings her mom favoured.
When she finally died, six months ago, Sheila had cracked the champagne she’d bought for the occasion years ago. Even still, anger bubbled sourly in her gut. A constant companion by now more intimate than any of her lovers.
Not that she’d had many.
Then one night, the one fatal, fateful night in June, it spoke to her, smoothly, wickedly it spoke. “It’d be easy, “ it purred, “ satisfying too. You see the way they look at you, you know its just a matter of time. One fine day they’re gonna getcha. You should get rid of them first.”
“Correct them; Go ahead they’re sleeping, now’s the time.” It whispered, insistent, demanding, cajoling, pleading, unyielding, unstopped. She hadn’t wanted to listen, had no intention of complying. No real intention anyway, but It wouldn’t stop. It never stopped.
It followed her to sleep and spoke to her there. Muttering in her dreams, stoking her desire for revenge. It poured her morning coffee, buttered, (margarined, really), her morning toast, lit her cigarettes. It susserated while she made their lunches and got them ready for school. Always talking, implacable, unbending, undeniable.
And, to tell the truth; a nonetoosecret corner of her mind welcomed that smooth authoritive voice. Craved its tone and timbre, listened eagerly, absorbing every syllable, believing every word. In no time at all, that corner grew and grew, metastasizing, darkening.
In the end, she wanted it to never stop and she knew, inside her secret self, that soon it would consume her utterly. At last, desperate, she knew she had to make it stop.
Later, when they found her ankle deep in blood and viscera, her sons lives splattered on the walls, and splattered all over her; she was laughing. Tears streamed down her face cutting blameless channels in her charnel house visage. The voices had finally stopped.
It was Friday night.
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