The Switchblade Mamma Read online

  2.

  I awoke to a bashing headache. I awoke to pure darkness. I awoke to lying on my back. I slowly lifted up my torso. I took a deep breath and tried to figure out where I was. I could smell dirt. I lifted my hands to my temples, so that I could rub away my exploding headache, only to find that my hands were bound by chains. Because I was enveloped in complete darkness, I used my hands to be my eyes. I figured at this point I had all the time in the world, and started feeling everything up. To the left of me, it felt like a wooden wall. To the right of me I could feel the edge of a wooden platform, some sort of makeshift bed. I took my legs and twisted them off the bed. I felt ground. I took a stand. Usually roller coasters quickly go down, but the roller coaster of pain shot up my back and climaxed in my head. The pulsating within my skull overcame me, and I had to sit back down again.

  I took my thumb and my index finger from my left hand and began to rub it in the space between my thumb and my index finger on my right hand. This was a pressure point that somebody had showed me a long ago to relieve headaches and it does work. Seeing how I did not have any aspirins laying around, so the method would have to suffice. As I felt relief, I decided to try to stand up again.

  As my head began to clear, other pain throughout my body became more apparent. Both feet planted firmly on the ground, I slowly raised my aching body up. Both hands lay by my sides. I took one, two, three steps, and came to the end of my chain. Great! I was now living in a big wooden coffin. Fantabulous!

  Frustrated, I then sat back down on the bed. Complete despair was flooding my mind. I figured becoming frantic was not going to help at all. I could yell, I could scream, I could rave and rant like a crazy lady, but I knew in my heart that it would do nothing but drain my energy.

  So I sat there, in complete obscurity. I heard no sounds and I saw nothing. It was the worst feeling that I ever felt. Complete loneliness. Completely cut off from anything.

  I started to fidget with the metal cuffs around my wrists. I was always known to be some sort of an escape artist and could get out of anything. Twisting and turning, turning and twisting. I started to feel pain, but I kept going. More twisting and turning until the pain became unbearable. I started to feel wetness in my right palm as I twisted the metal cuff from my left wrist. Blood began to flow. The skin began to peel off my wrist and I stopped as the pain became excruciating. As the Borg would say in Star Trek, resistance was futile.

  Resistance being futile, I laid my back against the wall to get some sort of comfort. I knew there was no way in hell that I would fall asleep comfortably. So I stared, into the murk. The cold began to settle in. My clothes were still wet and damp from the rain. I felt there was a blanket and a pillow. Gravy! Not really giving a shit, I sat there staring into the dark emptiness that now became my life, thinking of the things to come.

  I didn't whistle, and I didn't hum. But I tried to think of the most soothing song that I could think of, and I played it over and over again in my head. I tried so hard to be strong and not to cry, but what the hell was I supposed to do?

  The tears were rolling down my eyes. My whole world was gone, everything that I knew. You never know how important something is until you lose it, and I just lost it all. No more beer, Facebook, Xbox, work, everybody that I loved. I thought about my mom, and my sister, my niece, and I hoped whoever "he" was, had no idea who they were. I felt an insane rage growing. I felt a complete madness that I have never felt before. In the pitch black of the night I stood up like a beast. I raised both my arms. I was going to gain some speed and yank the metal mother fuckers out of the wall! I was going to break the chains, or at least make an attempt. One, two, three, and I ran like a bat out of hell. I didn't get very far at all before I was stopped dead in my tracks. The end of my chain came and I fell to the ground on my face. Complete failure. Discouraged I got back on my feet, brushed the dirt off of my already damp dirty pants, and took those few steps back to my shitty wooden bed. I sat there, at a complete loss, and started to hum that song that soothed me so.

  I had so many questions that plagued my mind. Most importantly, what were they going to do with me? Why was I there? Would I be dead tomorrow? I did not want to even think of the vile things that they could do to me. I pulled my knees up to my chest, laid my chin upon them, and rocked.

  At some point in the night I fell into some insane slumber. I dreamt of fists, rain, and pain. I dreamt of my mother and her beautiful face. How the sun used to accent her beautiful brown eyes. How she use take every bad moment and make it a good one. How she used to call me up and ask me if I was happy. I dreamt of my father and his big beard and his stunning blue eyes. How he used to be bold and brave and never afraid of anything. In any sticky situation, my father would find a way out. I dreamt of my grandmother and my grandfather and how they were always supportive. They always taught me that there was another way out. And then there was my sister Elaina. We were always fighting as we grew up. But what siblings don't fight? I always said, she got the beauty and I got the brains. It was weird, but for some reason they were all there in my dreams that night. They were all there for my support. They were all there to help me get through the worst night of my life.