Paranoiac by Attikus Absconder Page B

Please dear, you’re the only one that can do it. Your dad’s
too weak. You’re strong, you’re like me,” She tried to sit up but
she couldn't muster the strength.
    She let go of my wrist. I could see the tears spilling out of
her eyes. “Mom I can’t, it’s not fair.” I could have left her and
this conversation but my morbid curiosity welded me to the sick
room.
    “ Don’t lecture me on what’s fair Isaac,” She said before
coughing. Her breath was awful. It was musty and smelled putrid,
like she had been vomiting in her mouth and swallowing it back
down. Her coughing subsided and she wiped at her mouth with a
dirty, stained, rancid rag. “Isaac, this isn’t living. I’m just
sitting here waiting to die all because your awful father can’t let
me go.” She sat for a long while, just staring at me.
    I
was starting to understand. Yet I didn’t know if I could do this to
her, the only person that loved me. Still I understood why she
wanted to die. “How could I even hurt you?” I asked. She smiled as
my resolve weakened. “How could I live with myself?” I sat in the
chair behind me and I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I couldn’t
believe I was even considering this.
    “ It’s easy baby. Just take this pillow and put it over my head
until I stop moving.” She stared at me, tears in her eyes. “Zac, if
you do this, it will set me free. What you’re doing is a good
thing. What you’re doing, above all else will hurt him, your dad.”
She smiled and touched my hand lovingly. I could almost see an
afterimage of who she once was. “I know you hate him Zac and I
haven’t loved him for years. He refuses to let me die. He keeps me
in this hell and he tortures and hurts my baby boy.” She was crying
now and it was so pathetic.
    “ Mom, you’re just as bad as him. You let him treat me the way
he does.” I clenched my fists. Not because I hated him or her but
because she was so desperate. She was desperate enough to appeal to
my rage. She was trying to fuel this murderous deed with the hate
of my dad. And when she saw that it wasn’t working she tried to
make herself the victim of my furious hatred. Everything she said
was pushing me closer to the edge. She was making it easier for me
to make the decision. That’s the power she had over me. That’s the
power the people I love hold over me. “Okay,” I said quietly, then
bowed my head and started crying.
    My
mom handed me a puffy white pillow and slumped down flat on her
back in the bed. I took the pillow, stood up and hovered over her
face. “It’s okay Isaac, just do it swee-” I jammed the pillow on to
her weak, wheezing face and pressed down as hard as I could. She
couldn’t fight back. I thought of all the times dad hit me and
pressed harder with every strike I felt across my face. I
remembered her always sitting in the background, ignoring the
bruises and my screams. I used the anger to press harder and
harder. She shifted under me and I could hear her muffled moans. I
could feel and see her bones writhing underneath her skin. It
didn’t take long before everything was quiet. I feared that in her
last moments she changed her mind, that it wasn’t instinct that
drove her to fight back but fear of dying at the last second. I’ll
never know.
    I calmly took
a step back from my crying dad and stared him dead in the eyes. “We
only have each other now,” He said to me softly, sniffling and
rubbing at his nose. My face distorted in anger at his words. It
was too much too late. He had been taking out all of his fears,
anger and frustration on me for years. And now he wants to treat me
like his loving son. He must have been drunk, desperate or both.
The instant he saw my face he knew it was impossible. He felt the
weight of his actions and his dead wife on his shoulders. Walking
back into her room, he shut the door and continued
sobbing.
    I slinked away
angrily, went down the hall, down the stairs and straight into my
room. Packing my