The Family Album
Trigger Warning: A tale of murder, suicide and child abuse
Dying is easy. It’s the killing that’s hard. You can’t close your eyes, submit to fate and go all fuzzy focused. No, you’re on. It’s your time to move. Camera, action! You must do it with your eyes wide open. Commit. And I hoped it would cure the rage in my head. The stuff that burned in my gut and seared my insides. Stupid…
…I’m still waiting.
There are no more heroes. And revenge is never sweet. It’s as sour as the memories that spawn it. And yet I’ve held onto that SD card and the images where the final deed was done. An empty place. Empty of him. One day, someone will hold this memento without knowing…
*
I got the call just days ago. Two police officers at the door, hats off, tea and sympathy stuff. But without the actual tea, and just a teaspoon of sympathy. I’d ran out of teabags the night before. Then overslept next morning and had not managed to get down to the local co-op before their death knock. Just as well. It meant they said what they had to say, gave me a nod that, no doubt, according to their training notes, passed as the human touch, and left. Sorted in five minutes.
Yet their words trailed behind them, loitering with intent, like a smell of a wound gone bad that nothing…
