1000 Word Excerpt



Warm, blood trickled down my right temple and onto my ear as a result of impact with the blunted rock, which was imbedded in the ground. Mud covered one eye and piercing raindrops pelted me in the other. I could feel the moist warmth of my own blood as I rolled over onto one side. Moaning from my innermost depths, I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. Tears poured forth onto my knuckles, which tightly clenched the grass beneath me. The pain pounded in my head as I felt the blood travel down the side of my neck. The driving rainstorm seemed to intensify as I bent down on all fours, my head nearly buried in the mixture of mud and grass below. The pain of nine long years of suffering had finally come calling this night. Nine years of horror. Nine years of hope that was not hope. Nine years of shattered dreams, crushed hopes and a disfigured psyche had brought me to this nightin the rainin the mudalone.

I simply, could no longer shoulder the emotional and physical burden. Slowly, my body rebelled. From the depths of my stomach, I felt nine years of carnage come forth as I vomited nearly to the point of blood. Weakened, I rolled back onto my side into a puddle of rain water that had now become somewhat large. My lips began to quiver as I felt the coldness of the rain and the winter night. I began to shake violently as my body returned bullets of shock waves to my disarmed personality. I felt like I was dying from the inside out, and I feared that the pain of what I was losing would certainly drive a stake into my soul at any minute.

Unfortunately, that moment did not come. What did come though were more rain, more cold and the realization that I was still very much alive. Lying there for a few moments, I wished that it was I that was dying, and not my wife of nine years. Finally, I stumbled to my feet and staggered under the cover of the patio. I then fell onto the broken lawn chair which nearly collapsed under my weight. Rising up again, I stumbled through the open sliding glass door and into the house.

It seemed like I could see into my soul when I looked up in the bathroom mirror. The passageway to my mindthe doorway to rational thinking was sealed off. The ragged edge of my emotional war stared back at me. I hung my head for a moment. Nine yearsnine years, I muttered. Looking back up at myself in the glass, I whispered desperately, my Godwhere are you?