Shame to Rage and Viola's Composition

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 1137 –April 24, 2017
Prompt: Do you think that shame can be a trigger for anger? How?

Shame is a crippling emotion to live under. It can silence you, it can crush your spirit and marginalize your soul. I lived with shame like that for years during my first marriage, hiding the truth of my life from everyone that mattered. There were so many times in the aftermath of a violent episode, when I would be sitting among the shattered and broken things and I would think, "this is not the daughter my father raised." I would break open all over again thinking about how disappointed he would be that I allowed this to become my life. I was ashamed that I had fallen in love with a man who cursed and spat and hit. I was ashamed that even after that love had been crushed dead under the constant fear of sudden violence, I still could not leave.

I was ashamed at how cautious I had become, how complacent, how silent. I was ashamed of knowing those dark things, like the way passion can bloom into rage with a single word or all the ways a person can hurt you without leaving visible bruises that tell the world what you are. I knew shame intimately. I wore it like a heavy coat. In the end, however, it was the shame that saved me. That day, the last day he ever put his hands on me, the shame had rose up inside me like a tide and that tide carried me away. 

The argument had escalated, as it always did. My cell phone had been smashed to bits on the floor at my feet, my glasses knocked from my face and I could see one lens was shattered. He had my car keys clenched in one fist and he was shaking them at me, telling me once again, that I was stupid and useless. The side of my face was throbbing where he'd hit me open handed. I made a grab for my car keys and he had shoved me back hard, with the palms of both hands. The momentum sent me reeling back across the linoleum. I crashed into and then partially through the glass kitchen door. I had struggled to my feet, shaking glass from my hair and clothes, checking my exposed flesh for cuts, expecting I think, to have been shredded by the exploding glass. Miraculously I was unhurt. He had rushed to me, his dark eyes filled with concern, his mouth spewing nonsense. He hadn't meant to hurt me. He never meant to hurt me.

Standing there, in a pool of glass, listening to him vomiting his panicked excuses, I felt something shift in me. For the first time the shame gave way to something else, a white, hot anger. That anger rose up inside me, like some dark and raging sister in my soul. I literally saw red and I charged at him, tossing him to the ground and wrenching my car keys from his fist. The dynamics had instantly shifted between us. When he tried to get up, I shoved him back down with a strength I didn't know I possessed. "Stay down" I told him, my voice dripping with such venom that it frightened me. I feared if he had tried to move at that moment, I would have killed him with my bare hands. I told him I would kill him if he tried to touch me. I felt like I was on fire. I rushed to my car, wanting only to get away from him...not because I was afraid of him but because I was afraid of all that anger coursing through me. I was afraid of what I could do to him with all that rage.

That day was the last time he ever touched me. Shame had been my jailer for a long time, but it had also been my ally in freeing myself from that life. I think it must have just reached a point of critical mass when the need to speak out, to stand up and to live a different life became so much stronger than the need to keep it hidden, to hide behind the shame.

"Blogging Circle of Friends "
Prompt: Write a story or poem using the following words: piano, study, gaudy, ghost, bewitch, blushing, tongue, plan

I watched her for, concealed behind the partially opened door. She was sitting at the piano, her back ramrod straight and her shoulders rigid. Her thick black hair had been hastily pulled back into a heavy braid and it hung down her back, bisecting her thin frame. She bent forward to study the sheet of music in front of her, the tip of her tiny pink tongue pinched between her teeth as she concentrated. Then, Viola began to play. Her delicate, bird-like hands flew over the keys and the music began to fill the space between us.

The composition was one of her own design, crafted to challenge her but also to bewitch the listeners with its peaking crescendos and beautiful rolling valleys. She moved with the music, the heavy braid rocked back and forth like a thick rope. Her momentum caused the gaudy necklace of big glass beads to sway on her chest like a pendulum keeping time with the beat. I held my breath, felt the tears began to well. It was like watching a ghost. Voila played with the same impassioned abandon that her mother had. Watching the girl evoked a vivid memory and in its wake, a visceral pang of loss.

Viola's playing slowed, the notes softly fading as she reached the end of her composition. I had thoughtlessly began clapping before the final note had faded. Voila was startled by the sudden interruption. She turned to look at me, blushing crimson with wide, surprised eyes. It had not been the plan to eavesdrop on her practice. Viola was, as her mother had been, uncomfortable with act of performing. She recovered a bit when she saw it had only be me. She gave me shy smile and rose from the piano.

That Day in April....

Nine years ago today Fatih and I got married in a modest ceremony just a few miles from our front door.  It was a ceremony we carefully crafted to represent us and to celebrate our mixed faiths and cultures.  Our readings varied from love poems by Paublo Neruda and Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet to Emily Bronte and a familiar piece of scripture from 1 Corinthians 13:45.78.  The favors we gave our guests came from Turkey, silver evil eye charms and a glossy bag filled with Turkish delights. Our music was a highly varied soundtrack, with milestones of the ceremony marked by our favorite songs.  We danced to Van Morrison's Crazy Love, cut our cake to Mozella's "Can't Stop" and danced for hours to Turkish pop songs and all the modern top forty rock we could muster. Looking back I know it was truly our day, a day we designed to be about us and for us to share with our friends and family.  I think we got it 100% right. People still talk about that day, about my Dad's amazing speech, my sister's hilarious gangster-style toast or the surprise belly dancer we hired to kick off the party. 

Today we are both a littler grayer. Fatih is a lot thinner and we are parents to an amazing 7 year old who makes life so much more wonderful than either one of us imagined it could be.  That day in April, when I thought life couldn't be more perfect, I was totally wrong. Marriages are full of perfect moments...just not in one continuous stream.  Marriage isn't about everything always being perfect, always being "just right".  It can be hard, so hard sometimes and there will always be rough patches that wear you down. As the years pass, as the memories of that brilliant day fade and those vows and promises seem to grow fainter, sometimes you even question.  In the most difficult times, you may even have doubts.  Then, you have one of those unassuming, simply perfect moments in life and you are astounded by how complete and infinite your love is and you are so grateful for the life you have built together. And you think, in all the world this is my person, this is my best friend, this is my family and I would do anything, go anywhere, be anything for him.

Marriage is work, even the best ones. Its about having faith and hope and a little perspective too.  Love is recognizing the absolute perfection in imperfection and the grace in loving someone with everything you are.

Fatih, I still love you like crazy, everyday with everything I am. Happy Anniversary!

The Strange Perfume of Memory and the Leaps We Take Alone.

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 1107 March 24, 2017
Write your entry for today about a place that you have spent a considerable amount of time in--perhaps somewhere you lived or worked before--and whose smells are curiously linked with your recollection. Describe the emotions and events from that period that those smells conjure up, and the ways in which your memories may have been colored by your preference or distaste of those smells.

In my youthful days, days when I was driven by wholly different passions than I am today, I volunteered at the local aquarium. During my tenure as a Sea Urchin, the aquarium's term for their student volunteers, my favorite assignment was working with the aquarists in the back. I remember arriving in the early hours on summer mornings and passing through the mud brown door labeled "authorized personnel" into another world filled a new variety of new sensory delights that I can still recall with absolute clarity.

I would always start my shift in the few hours before the aquarium opened for the public. The vast halls and rooms were oddly silent except for the ambient sounds of the massive filtration and circulation machinery always working in the belly and bowels of the place. The gray green windows of the display tanks cast an almost cosmic glow in the shadowed interior. I would pass the rows of tanks on my way to the back, the round eyes of our residents watching me pass. I would always stop at the shark tank and spend a few brief moments watching the sand tigers circling slowly, their snaggle-toothed mouths agape and their black eyes fixed and staring. Behind the circular shark habitat there were the three expansive windows of the main husbandry tank, most often empty that time of the day. Without a resident sea lion or bottlenose dolphin, it always looked immense and cold to me.

It was the olfactory impressions of this place however that leave the strongest impression on my memory bank. Passing through the main lobby and side rooms and pushing open the door that lead to the aquarist area, I was immediately assaulted by the smells of the space. Here behind the tanks, were all the scents associated with the task of maintaining multiple marine environments and those creatures that dwell there. The air was flavored with the briny, slightly antiseptic smell of artificial seawater. There was also the pungent smell of fish meal loaves being chopped in the stainless steel kitchen or the biting scent of raw mackerel being stuffed with supplements and minerals. The strongest odors emanated from the buckets of squid and bait fish and from the rows of glass jugs where the aquarist cultivated brine shrimp for the filter feeders. Leaning over dark tank of the Pacific octopus, the water of that habitat always seem to have a strange tang of sweetness mixed with the faintest smell of detritus. The tidal touch tank smelled brightly of the powered salt that collected along the water line and low tide marks. The big river tank, the one that housed the rainbow trout and had to be accessed via a false woodsy terrain, smelled strongly like moss and brackish bays.

They were all strong smells, often not pleasant smells. They were the smells of this living world and I loved them. It was messy work, it was smelly work but it was the labor of love for me and I wore those smells home with me each day. The time I spent there is a vivid collection of wonderful memories, the foundation for something I carried forward with me in my life.



"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1590 March 24, 2017
"In late February, frogs, salamanders, and other amphibians responding to early warm temperatures began migrating from their winter hideouts to vernal pools to begin the spring mating season. Some of the animals were chaperoned to safety by concerned volunteers across trafficked streets late at night in New York and other Northeastern states. Write an essay about a time in your life when you made a big decision or took a leap. Did someone arrive to accompany you or were you on your own? Was your emotional journey guided by a crossing guard who brought you to safety?" ~ Writers Digest

Reflecting on the times of the bigger decisions in my life, I am forced to admit that those were the times I felt most solitary. In fact, I think the big decision moments felt that way because I had to make the decision for myself, with little counsel or guidance. That isn't to say I did not have people who helped me, because I did. The really big leaps though, I took many of those on my own and often, in relative secrecy from my loved ones. Divorcing my first husband is probably the one that really comes to mind. It wasn't so much the act of leaving the marriage that was the big decision but rather the emotional journey of freeing myself from a physically and verbally abusive relationship, one that I had hidden from everyone for almost five years. It came down to one moment, one moment when I had to decide to stand up and fight back. It had taken everything I had to push past all the shame and the fear and come out the other side. The day I pulled myself free, I was alone and it was awful and terrifying. It was also momentous and defining for me. Afterward, I did have "crossing guards" and good Samaritans who helped me with process of recovering myself and with healing. I found it much easier to let people in once I had made the leap. I think that that singular act, that decision, had to be mine alone.

The Lesson of the Lorax and The Legacy of Madness

"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1586: March 20, 2017
Prompt: Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. Dr. Seuss Use this quote to inspire today's entry. Write a story, a poem, or your opinion.

In the days before I embraced corporate life, I was a student of science. The love I had for exploration and investigation seemed imprinted on my DNA. My childhood heroes were Jacques Cousteau, Jane Goodall and the shark lady herself, Dr. Eugenie Clark. I was going to follow in their footsteps of research, discovery and conservation. Somewhere along the line, my other passion won out and I was compelled to follow in my father's footsteps. I traded in my wetsuits and regulators for a corporate office and airplanes. Though my career has me pursuing altitude rather than exploring fathoms, my love of science and nature still draws me to the importance of conservation and preservation.

Scientists predict that over the next 100 years, our planet will lose over 50% of our species. The oceans are being over-fished at alarming rates, entire ecosystems are experiencing degradation and ruin and some species are suffering unprecedented rates of die-off... all this while some politicians insist climate change is over-hyped or worse, merely a hoax perpetrated by liberals. The scientific community has offered irrefutable evidence that we are in the midst of a sixth period of mass extinction, fueled in part, by a host of human activities from ranging from deforestry to consumption of fossil fuels and carbon emissions. Certainly some climate effects and large scale changes to the global ecosystems are cyclical and part of the Earth's natural order and evolution, but that should not excuse or pardon the human factors that affect and in many cases, expedite radical and harmful environmental and climatic change. We all consume, therefore we mustn't we also all act to educate and conserve?

It sometimes seems overwhelming. It sometimes seems like a fight that can never be won but still, every minute of every day, there are scientists and engineering researching and designing ways to conserve and protect our national resources. There are activists and educators fighting on the front lines as well as lawmakers lobbying for legislation. There are filmmakers and artists bringing the messaging to the global community with films like Racing Extinction. There are so many movements designed to educate people on how to make conservation a part of our everyday existence.

Regardless of those striving to politicize protecting our oceans and ecosystems, the fact remains that it is our human responsibility to do what we can for our planet. Why wouldn't we want to save our coral reefs, protect our endangered species and national parks? If we could, wouldn't we all try to stop the slaughter of our ocean's apex predators? Slow the rate of melting or our polar ice caps? Save the black rhino, Hawksbill turtle, Asian elephant or any number of those species currently categorized as critically endangered? Where will our politics be in 100 years when 50% of life on our planet has disappeared? Unless...someone like me and you...#startwith1thing

http://worldwildlife.org
http://www.opsociety.org/
http://racingextinction.com/


"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 1103 March 20, 2017
Prompt: Totally different from the scientific and cosmic black holes, imagine your very own, fictional black hole. What would it be like? Describe it or use it in a flash fiction story or poem if you wish.

The dark space in the earth was an open maw of inky blackness. It called to her, she felt an almost magnetic pull in her gut. The toes of her sneakers, protruding just over the edge, where like bright white triangles against the sea of black below her. If she took one small step, she would fall into it, she would fall forever. No single thought in her life had even been more wholly appealing and compelling.

Alexia fought the urge, the temptation to feed herself to the pit. The physical will it took to draw herself back and away for the edge, left her winded and her skin covered with a slick film of perspiration. Even now as she sat four feet away, leaning against big maple tree and feeling its rough back biting into her bare flesh, she wanted more than anything to hurl her body down that deep shaft. There was no world but the one that was a mystery to her. There was no future but the one that beckoned, dark and endless, from the broken earth. The black hole called her, as it had called her mother. How long could she live without answering?

International Women's Day - #BeBoldForChange

 "Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1574: March 8, 2017
Prompt: March 8 is International Women's Day. The theme this year is "Be Bold For Change" https://www.internationalwomensday.com/. Write a story, poem, or something about women or a woman being expressing this theme. Or write your opinion about this theme.


I'm waking up to the fact that today, March 8th, is International Women's Day. I am struck by one, pervasive thought almost immediately. Has this been an annual thing and if so, how have I missed it before? Then, admittedly, I think...what kind of woman does that make me?

In the course of being having a busy full time career, raising a daughter, trying to be a writer, volunteering on the PTO board and running a household, it appears I totally missed the boat on a day meant to observe and champion my fellow women, countless numbers who struggle everyday to fill the same roles I do. At a time when so many feel that womanhood and some of our most important and basic freedoms are under attack, I totally miss "our day"? What does that say about me? As a women?

Admittedly, I have never had the heart of an activist. Sure, I've signed petitions, shared articles of many things of singular importance and written pieces that were strong minded and defiant. I've supported causes and rallied behind those individuals and institutions that I felt represented necessary change. But, I've never been in a walk-out, or walked a protest line or marched. When a dear friend of mine told me she was going to the Women's march in DC, I was thrilled for her but never once remotely considered doing that myself. Does this make me less of of feminist? Am I failing my daughter in some way by not exposing her to a life of active resistance to injustices? I'm raising her to be strong, fight for herself and never let anyone tell her she can't do something and telling myself, at least by some measure, that its the same thing. Is it?I ask myself these questions a lot, but especially this morning.

I work in a very non-traditional field for women. I often joke that is it the industry that social progress forgot. That isn't true but people would be surprised by the things I hear and the battles I still see being fought among my female peers and colleagues for, not just equal pay and opportunity, but for authority, power and credibility. I grew up in this industry though and I feel like I've developed that thicker skin both from being the minority but also from being young and college educated. In my space populated by technology-loathing, "dinosaurs" who see little value in academics, I have often rallied for modernization and vision as much as I have for equality. I use that term "dinosaurs" with endearment, for they are as much a part of my upbringing and my personal landscape as the smell of jet fuel and the whine of a high powered turbine running up on the ramp. I embrace them as part of whom I am and the world I live and work in every day. Over the year I've learned to try not to get sidetracked by the little lumps so I can win the bigger victories. My female colleges number among those I find most supportive, hardworking and loyal. They are easily my "go to" people because in addition to just being straight-up, bad-ass good at their jobs, they get the big picture. They are essential cogs in our machine, even if at times, that machine grinds and moans and occasionally goes on the fritz.

But, back to Women's Day 2017...I clicked the link. I had to get educated. I did not want to start slinging the hash tag #BeBoldForChange about without knowing the values behind it. The website was clearly organized, as one would expect and there near the bottom, was a box marked "VALUES". I clicked it and found a list of words like Equality, Trepidation, Justice...to name a few. I thought about the list and found that three of the words resonated with me a bit more than the others.

Equality. As a woman I want the same opportunities to achieve power and success as my male colleagues. I want the opportunity to make the same money for the same jobs as they do. If Equality is about potential and empowerment, I'm in 100%. However, I don't want total equality. I feel that men and women are different animals entirely, possessing inherent strengths and abilities bestowed on us at birth. Women can be mothers, they can nurture. They can reason with often greater empathy and depth then many men can. They can endure and persist. They can explore countless nuances in their relationships. Women are amazing for all the things that make us different from men. We are not equal because we are not the same and that, that is not a bad thing. It may not be the most popular view among my peers but it is what I believe.

Collaboration. Women need other women. I have seen countless examples of women knocking other women down. There is too much descent among our ranks. We need to all do a better job of seeing what unifies us rather than what divides us as women. One of the unfortunate side-effects of that powerful march on DC was the clearly discernible reality that not all women's groups are created equal, not all women felt welcomed and unified. The weakness of that movement was its failure to be all-inclusive in the end with many factions and groups feeling they had been "left out" or "marginalized". If we are raging against a society that seeks to marginalize and hold us back, why do we fall into the trap of doing that to one another? There is a great quote that sums this up for me..."Strong Women, May be Be Know them, May we Be Them, May we Raise them". Women are still women regardless of whether they are working or stay-at-home moms, Muslims or Christians, Republicans, Activists or pacifists, gay or straight, etc. We need to be women working with women for change first and foremost.

Hope In this world today, in this nation so divided, fear often seems to be the prevailing emotion many are feeling. We are fearful even in our activism and our passion. The concept of the collected "we", as Americans, as women, as human beings feels precarious and forced at times as we watch people taking sides, slinging political rhetoric like weapons, condoning prejudice and inciting violence. I look at my daughter, a child of mixed faiths and mixed cultures and all girl...and I think, what will the world become for her? Will it be kind? Will it continue to be tolerant? Will it provide her opportunities to stand up? Will she find support and camaraderie? Is there hope for her? I would like to believe the answer to all those questions, and more, is yes. Yes, there is hope. There is hope because there are stories of great women to share and inspire, there are great victories won every day for all women. There is hope because we continue to observe, protest, march, speak up and write. We champion the stories of great Americans, regardless of gender, working hard and supporting their communities. There is hope because Democracy is about more than political jargon and party lines. There is hope because we see countless examples every day that give us faith in humanity and that will always trump everything else.

A Peace Not Forced

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 1077, Feb. 20, 2017
Taking after 2/19/17 prompt...
Prompt: If you could write some advice for the entire humankind on a board or tablet where everyone could see, what would that advice be? It can be as short or as long as you wish.

If there has anything this last year has taught me, is that as humankind is largely opposed to taking advice, especially when it comes from an alternative viewpoint or opinion. If social media has shown us anything, it is that our opinions and positions on issues are not easily swayed by the testimony of others - regardless how impassioned or heartfelt it may be.

I have found myself at a bit of a loss at how divided I feel our nation has become and sadly I struggle to think of an universal piece of advice that would subvert the barriers and divisions. If I were to leave some word for my fellow masses, it would have be the words of people far more gifted and visionary than myself.

 My advice would be to heed the words of Albert Einstein:

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding."

or those of the Dalai Lama:

"World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not the absence of violence; peace is the manifestation of human compassion."

And, myself included, to try to remember that our human journey is far more precious and beautiful than can be experienced through a glowing smart phone screen. The human experience isn't isolated and relative, it is universal, barrier-less and boundless.

Josephine Purdy

*Rated 18+, this story may contain adult themes and language.

Twin beams of yellow light danced over the tops of the tombstones as the boys raced in tandem through the cemetery. They dodged and darted between the larger stones and mausoleums and hurtled over the toppled gravestones and smaller markers.

As the adrenaline coursed through him, Kyle felt it firing his limbs and he resisted the primal urge to howl. The empty cans of spray paint in his pockets rattled and bounced and he struggled not to lose them as he ran. His cousin Paul matched his pace, falling behind only to surge past him again and again. Kyle saw him now, coming up fast on his right side, his face a mask of tension. A few hundred yards off the cemetery gates loomed up in the darkness. He could not see their bikes beyond it but he knew they were there, waiting.

Admittedly this had been a bad idea. If they had been caught in the act of vandalizing a cemetery, it was big trouble for both of them. Kyle was still processing that thought when his foot caught on something and he went down hard. He landed on his chest, knocking the wind from his lungs. His flashlight hit the ground, the light and lens shattered with the impact. Kyle rolled onto his back, waiting for his breath and for the pain to subside. When it had, he sat up and looked around.

He had tripped over a fallen tombstone. It was lying almost parallel to the ground, the aged stone pockmarked and covered with black moss. Kyle crawled the short distance to it. It was out of place, set apart from the others. It should not have been there.
Paul was suddenly at his side, helping him to his feet.

“Dude, you took a serious digger!” the younger boy said, not bothering to harness the laughter that leaked out with the words.

“Yeah, I tripped over that, “ Kyle said, grabbing his cousin’s flashlight and directing the beam onto the gravestone.

The light illuminated a grave marker that was narrower and older looking than any other they’d seen that night. It was half sunken into earth,the writing so degenerated that it was illegible but for one word, “Purdy”.

Paul and Kyle exchanged a look. The name meant something to them as it would have to anyone from Brewster familiar with the town’s dark history.

“She wasn’t buried this close to the gates was she?” Paul asked.

Kyle looked over Paul’s shoulder and saw to his dismay that the gates where not as close as he thought they’d been. Indeed, their impressive outlines where no longer visible. How had they gotten turned around? Confusion and an ever increasing pain in his ankle infused Kyle with a new fear. They hadn’t been turned around, they had been running for those gates. He had seen them. Even in the darkness, Kyle had registered their outlines on the horizon.

Paul snatched his flashlight back from his cousin and slowly turned in a wide circle, casting the beam in a wide arch to survey their surroundings. Nothing looked familiar. The boys stood shoulder to shoulder, stunned and silent in the deepening night.
The toppled gravestone at their feet began to vibrate – they felt it through the soles of their sneakers. They backed up and away from it. The air was suddenly thick with the smell of rot, it pressed in past their teeth and filled their throats. Assaulted by the stretch, both boys began retching and spitting.

Kyle felt Paul’s hand suddenly gripe his arm. He followed his cousin’s frightened gaze and saw the figure advancing on them, a darker space in the blackness. Paul raised the flashlight beam and illuminated the night and the moving figure.

It was a woman in a white cotton shift. Long black hair trailed down her shoulders and her feet and legs were bare. As the beam moved up over body, the boys saw that she was naked under the shift, her dark mounds and full breasts clearly discernable through the thin material. She was older, perhaps Kyle’s mother’s age, with strong womanly features and large eyes. She drew within four of five feet of the boys and smiled, cutting her eyes from one boy to the other before stepping in close to Kyle. She paused and tugged the dress over her head and off with one practiced hand. She leaned forward, her long lashes brushing his cheek and she sniffed him. The woman placed both hands on his chest, gripped his sweatshirt in talon-like fists and dragged Kyle forward against her body.

She smelled bad, really bad. Kyle registered that fact as strongly as he did her lush, hard body. He felt his arousal mounting despite the smell of rot emanating from her and his own growing sense of terror. He felt Paul back away slowly, felt his cousin make the decision to bolt just before he did exactly that. Kyle tried to call out after him but the woman was looming close and her eyes were dark, oscillating pools that paralyzed him. Kyle stood on quaking legs while her fingers trailed down to his belt and below it, pressing against the obvious bulge in the front of his jeans.

The woman began keening, a horrendous sound that made Kyle mad with fear. She began caressing his arousal through the denim. When Kyle tried to pull away, she hissed wetly at him, sending thin ribbons of black spittle over his cheeks and chin. Her fingers gripped the buckle of his belt and tugged it free in a practiced motion. Kyle struggled backwards, tried to pry her hands away but she had already wrapped a hand around his erection and pulled him free. He was hard and pulsing in her cold grip.

The touch made him cry out in pain and in terror. The wrongness of his situation rushed over him like a tide and he began to twist violently away, sobbing and cursing at the abomination that had him in her demonic clutch. He felt her nails ripping ribbons of flesh from his buttocks, felt her teeth at his neck and saw her swollen, lolling tongue. He got his arms up between them, pressed his palms against her breasts and shoved as hard as he could. The woman stumbled back, her hand fell away and Kyle was suddenly free. He turned and ran blindly into the night.

He ran and ran, stumbling and falling, his pants slipping down over his hips. He dragged himself back to his feet, tugging them back up and breaking into another wild sprint. His heart was pounding and he was screaming, too loud to hear anything that chased him. He did not look back. He felt the spray cans drop from his pockets and fall away. He didn’t stop to retrieve them. His eyes darted across the cemetery as he ran, looking for anything familiar, desperately looking for the gates. Then, he saw them.

Kyle tapped into his last reserves and took off. The momentum sent him careening into the wrought iron frames, rattling them. Kyle tugged them open and slipped through. Paul and his bike were gone. He snatched his up from the ground. He hurriedly stuffed himself, limp and shriveled now back into his jeans. Kyle threw his leg over the bike and launched himself away as quickly as he could manage. He rode at a breakneck, hazard pace all the way home. He never looked back, just pedaled and rubbed the tears from his eyes.

The house was dark and quiet, as he had left it hours before. Kyle slipped out of his clothes and stepped into the hottest shower his tender skin could stand. He washed himself roughly, turning his skin red in the steam. He could still smell her decay on his body, still felt the horror of her assault and the tender places on his body that she had scratched, torn and bruised. He still saw the obscenity of her naked breasts and her exposed sex in his mind. Exhausted, Kyle fell into bed. In the relative safety of his room, he felt unhinged.

Josephine Purdy had been the town postmistress decades ago. She had been a dark beauty, a widow with very un-puritan appetites. She had seduced the pious town magistrate and his wife had accused her of being a witch. Josephine had been tried and hung. She had been buried in the outskirts of the cemetery to be forgotten. The creature that attacked and violated him tonight had most certainly been her. Tomorrow the police would find the vandalized graves, spray cans and subsequently their fingerprints. Kyle didn’t care. He wasn’t going back to get them, what waited there for him was far worse than punishment he could imagine.