SnowBlind
Chapter One
Up at the top of the linen closet, she had a box of letters that she had written,
folded, placed into scented envelopes, and never sent out. They were just left there, in a
floral box with a fitted top, hidden behind last years New Year's Eve decorations and a big
Birthday hat from her 22nd.
God how time flew by.
When she was alone at home Sarah would take the box down, being careful to set
the decorations and party favors inside the closet, just in case Brian came home early. He
didn't usually. He'd be out late, with the boys, losing what little money they had left.
Sarah had dark circles under her eyes from the late nights, and the fights, and the credit
cards that were cut at the check-out lines.
But when she was alone she would take out her best stationary, the kind she kept
hidden beneath the clothes in her underwear drawer, and write in a floating script that she
never used in the classroom. She would write, letting her pen form the words before her
mind could stop it, and then never read it. But she knew who she wrote to... she wrote to
Him every time.
Then she'd seal the letter safely in a matching envelope, put it in the box with the
others and replace her owl-quill pen as if nothing had ever happened. By the time Brian
came home, a foul stench of beer and cigars over the clothes that he tossed carelessly on
the floor of the comfortable bedroom, she would be laying in bed. Not asleep, but
pretending.
She didn't like to make love when he was drunk, or after he had lost. More often
than not, both had occurred prior to him coming home. She laid in the bed, shivering
inside herself and waiting. Most often Brian would just lay down and, snoring, drift into
sleep. But there were times, horrible times that made her want to run far, far away....
"Sugar," he whispered against her ear.
Sarah tried to move away from him, bringing her shoulder up to rub against her
jawline. In the kitchen the sink was dripping, echoing against a sullen pot. Brian looped
his large finger under her hair, pulled it back and then ran his hand along her soft skin.
She smelled like Kiwi and Strawberries, and Brian buried his face into her hair.
"Its late," she finally mumbled.
"So?"
Sarah rolled on to her back, the silk of her pajamas making a soft rustle against the
linen. She smiled, and let him kiss her, bruising her lips against her teeth. His breath
tasted stale and sour, and she moved away to avoid gagging. Brian reached out, jerking
her head back and looked into her widened hazel eyes.
"What are you thinking?!" He demanded, running a single finger down her neck,
to her collarbone and stopping at the first pearly white button on her purple night shirt.
*Drip, Drip*
Sarah threw the sheets aside and, in one quick movement, was out from under her
husband. Brian observed her calmly from the bed, but she could sense the fury mounting
behind his pale blue eyes. The same eyes that she had fallen in love with four years ago...
as a grad student with high aspirations and no experience.
"I'm not doing this, Brian!" Sarah stated vehemently.
He lifted himself effortlessly from the bed, easy and light on his feet. He was a
large man, an overpowering man, but he was so slender and graceful in his walking. It
reminded Sarah of someone else, somehow who had never received any of a few dozen
letters stowed away with her sheets and memories of New Years resolutions.
"What, sugarpie, aren't you gonna do?" he asked.
"This!" She gestured between the two of them to indicate just what 'this' was.
He leapt at her and she barely missed the outstretched hands that clawed against
her shirt. One button popped off, and Sarah screamed. She screamed and screamed as
she opened the bedroom door, and screamed as she flailed into the living room, running
her hands over the wall for a light switch.
"Fucking Bitch!"
His words were met with a resounding "smack" of his hand against her face. She
jarred backwards, hitting the wall, and the picture of their small family fell from its nail.
Sarah yelped, and the glass broke, scattering over the top of their black and white
television set.
The handprint burned bright against her pale flesh. "How dare you!" she
whispered as she touched her cheek, feeling every tear and every lonely moment of their
marriage together in the act of violence.
"Get back into the bedroom!"
"Fuck you!" She screamed and tore one of the two antennas from the top of her
TV completely off. The wire crackled and sparked, and a fine gray line of smoke
interrupted the cool darkness.
Blinded by fury Sarah jerked out with enough force to jab the point of the antenna
into Brian's outstretched hand. And, for some divine reason, it pierced straight through
the flesh and muscle, tearing the ligament and tendons in the process for his ring and
middle finger. The two fell, useless, against the palm of his hand as he held it up and
looked at the injury incredulously.
Sarah stood still, her breath coming in and out in short gasps as she watched,
unbelieving, as the blood dripped from Brian's hand. It was a trick, she was sure, but
somehow she knew that she had done something. *Drip, Drip*
The Damn sink!
"Don't you ever fucking touch me! Don't you ever lay your hand on me! You
BASTARD!" she screamed, doubling over as tears broke her vindicating words.
Brian was silent, but his blue eyes moved around the room as he held his hand in
the other, wondering what to do. Sarah spotted the phone first and rushed to it, jerking
the cord out. She held the little cream phone in her hand, Brian with his wide blue eyes
was unsuspecting. Of course she wouldn't do it.
"B-Baby?" he asked, holding his hand out as if she hadn't seen or noticed just what
had happened to him. The fingers swayed as he jerked it out, exposing the wound. His
thumb was twitching, ticking to the beat of the dripping sink hitting a pot that was still
dirty from dinner.
"I'm going now, Brian. I'm going to go away and you can stay here and play your
CARD games with the boys as much as you want!" she hissed.
Brian didn't move. He just looked at her and at his hand, then back to her. She
felt her cheeks burning in her rage, fiery red against her skin, blotching out the handprint.
She was shivering outside now, her hand that held the telephone shaking uncontrollably.
Brian was trembling too, and his finger was moving.... back and forth and back and forth.
"Stop!" she screamed and dropped the phone. Brian seemed startled out of his
self-pitying as he heard the phone ring once, as if in a dying moment. He looked at it,
looked at his hand, and then snarled.
Sarah backed away, hearing the sound like an animal from the man she had
thought she had loved. She tried to grab at the phone, but he kicked it away, and it struck
the far wall like a football. Brian held his hand out again and, grimacing in some horrible
pain, jerked the broken antenna out.
It cracked against something. It cracked and he winced and doubled in pain. And
that was the only reason he didn't kill his wife that evening with booze and money on his
mind. He bent over, crying like a puppy who'd been kicked, and wiping blood against his
new wranglers. The jeans he just had to have.
"You aren't going nowhere!" he bit out between sobs and gasps.
Sarah reached behind herself, feeling a door handle, and opened the door. Inside
she could smell fresh laundry and touched the gentle sheets that she laid on the beds every
other week. It seemed fitting to be the linen closet.
"Sarah! Get back here!" Brain demanded as he staggered upright, toppling
backwards, awash in pain. Sarah heard him clatter into the easy chair, and overturn it.
The TV toppled from its stand, and erupted with a single dull pop. Soon there would be
nothing left.
She grabbed the New Years Eve decorations, tossing them into the living room
without a single care if her husband was angered or not. Then, seeing the box, the heavy
and blunt box, she jumped and jarred it with the tip of her longest finger. It moved
forward, and so did Brian. Once more she jumped, and again the box tilted towards her.
"SARAH!" he screamed.
*Drip, Drip*
God, God, the fucking sink. Ohmigawd, ohgod.... the sink, the damn sink he
never fixed! He's up, oh god he's up. God, God, please. Oh god, please!
He touched her hair. She felt him barely brush his brutally lumpy fingers against
her dark chestnut locks and the box fell. Sarah grabbed it, as if catching a long pass, and
then turned. He moved back, again one of the only reasons for her not winding up laying
in a puddle of her own blood. He was frightened, she had already inflicted a severe injury
on him, and he wasn't sure if he wanted anymore.
"Brian!" she yelled.
In the light of the moon his eyes were like shards of glass. They were so pale that
it seemed the whites never ended, until the huge pupil started. She saw his eyes, tried to
see his soul, and saw only the black depth of the pupil staring back. There was nothing
else left. Nothing worth trying to save.
"Here's to redemption!" she proclaimed.
He cringed back, just enough as she brought the box down against the back of his
head, that he fell into the sofa. It was fitting. He spent the most of his time laying on his
back. In the kitchen the sink continued to drip, and drip, and drip. Sarah merely stood
there, in the middle of the living room, holding the box tightly.
Brian's scalp was bleeding, where she had hit it. And he was looking around the
room, dazed and completely unaware of what had just happen. The power had been
switched. She had taken control of a life that she hadn't known to be hers for four long
years... ever since he, Brian, entered it.
"Fix the Goddamn sink!" she demanded.
The clock began to chime.. chiming.... chiming. "Midnight" Sarah muttered to
herself as she looked at the hands against the light blue face. Almost the same color as
Brain's wandering eyes. Then she remembered him, and noticed him reaching out to the
coffee table to get up. He wouldn't lose easily.
Gotta Go, Gotta Go... go... go... go!
Sarah repeated the simple word in her head again and again, like a mantra to make
her feet move. She wanted, more than anything else, to be out of the house, but somehow
there was some poor damaged part of her that wanted to stay and bandage his wounds and
accept his punishments... however mortally dangerous they might be. She fought that part
with the repetition, in beat with the leak in the sink.
Sarah found her purse, fumbling over it in the dark, and searched out her car keys
from his. The last thing she wanted was to drive away in his Ford F-350 while Brian was
laying half-comatose in their shared living room.... Not anymore. She was gone.. she
would go, she was going.
She pushed herself through the door, not looking back and letting it slam closed.
A white door, a little white door on a cream-colored house, with a lawn and a flower bed.
She had wanted all of that, and had wanted to be married. And her job! Her job!
She paused, looking at the house from the driveway, where she had left her little
vehicle parked. It wasn't anything much, just a used mustang that had come to be a little
under 5 grand, when everything was taken into consideration. But it had low mileage,
and....
"What am I going to do?!" Sarah asked herself, asked the night, asked anyone who
would hear her. But no one was out at midnight, no one was there, except for Him. "Are
you listening to me? Are you watching me?"
Of course He didn't answer, He never did. But she wrote her letters to Him
almost every night of her married life. Sarah realized, in mild shock that the box of letters
was under her arm. There was no going back... she only could move forward.
She glanced over her shoulder once as she pulled out the car key and jumped
inside. Somehow, through all she had survived, she was sure that he would get her as she
was driving off. Brian would storm out of the house with his shotgun and blow her away
while she was driving. Then it would really be over.
Gotta go, go...go! Gotta Go!!
She revved the engine, thankful that it kicked into life immediately, and then
backed out of the driveway. Brian didn't barge through the front door with a shotgun, nor
did she see him race out to his truck to track her down. However, the entire time she
drove on the interstate, wondering just where she was going to go, she watched her
rear-view mirror and waited....
Chapter One
Up at the top of the linen closet, she had a box of letters that she had written,
folded, placed into scented envelopes, and never sent out. They were just left there, in a
floral box with a fitted top, hidden behind last years New Year's Eve decorations and a big
Birthday hat from her 22nd.
God how time flew by.
When she was alone at home Sarah would take the box down, being careful to set
the decorations and party favors inside the closet, just in case Brian came home early. He
didn't usually. He'd be out late, with the boys, losing what little money they had left.
Sarah had dark circles under her eyes from the late nights, and the fights, and the credit
cards that were cut at the check-out lines.
But when she was alone she would take out her best stationary, the kind she kept
hidden beneath the clothes in her underwear drawer, and write in a floating script that she
never used in the classroom. She would write, letting her pen form the words before her
mind could stop it, and then never read it. But she knew who she wrote to... she wrote to
Him every time.
Then she'd seal the letter safely in a matching envelope, put it in the box with the
others and replace her owl-quill pen as if nothing had ever happened. By the time Brian
came home, a foul stench of beer and cigars over the clothes that he tossed carelessly on
the floor of the comfortable bedroom, she would be laying in bed. Not asleep, but
pretending.
She didn't like to make love when he was drunk, or after he had lost. More often
than not, both had occurred prior to him coming home. She laid in the bed, shivering
inside herself and waiting. Most often Brian would just lay down and, snoring, drift into
sleep. But there were times, horrible times that made her want to run far, far away....
"Sugar," he whispered against her ear.
Sarah tried to move away from him, bringing her shoulder up to rub against her
jawline. In the kitchen the sink was dripping, echoing against a sullen pot. Brian looped
his large finger under her hair, pulled it back and then ran his hand along her soft skin.
She smelled like Kiwi and Strawberries, and Brian buried his face into her hair.
"Its late," she finally mumbled.
"So?"
Sarah rolled on to her back, the silk of her pajamas making a soft rustle against the
linen. She smiled, and let him kiss her, bruising her lips against her teeth. His breath
tasted stale and sour, and she moved away to avoid gagging. Brian reached out, jerking
her head back and looked into her widened hazel eyes.
"What are you thinking?!" He demanded, running a single finger down her neck,
to her collarbone and stopping at the first pearly white button on her purple night shirt.
*Drip, Drip*
Sarah threw the sheets aside and, in one quick movement, was out from under her
husband. Brian observed her calmly from the bed, but she could sense the fury mounting
behind his pale blue eyes. The same eyes that she had fallen in love with four years ago...
as a grad student with high aspirations and no experience.
"I'm not doing this, Brian!" Sarah stated vehemently.
He lifted himself effortlessly from the bed, easy and light on his feet. He was a
large man, an overpowering man, but he was so slender and graceful in his walking. It
reminded Sarah of someone else, somehow who had never received any of a few dozen
letters stowed away with her sheets and memories of New Years resolutions.
"What, sugarpie, aren't you gonna do?" he asked.
"This!" She gestured between the two of them to indicate just what 'this' was.
He leapt at her and she barely missed the outstretched hands that clawed against
her shirt. One button popped off, and Sarah screamed. She screamed and screamed as
she opened the bedroom door, and screamed as she flailed into the living room, running
her hands over the wall for a light switch.
"Fucking Bitch!"
His words were met with a resounding "smack" of his hand against her face. She
jarred backwards, hitting the wall, and the picture of their small family fell from its nail.
Sarah yelped, and the glass broke, scattering over the top of their black and white
television set.
The handprint burned bright against her pale flesh. "How dare you!" she
whispered as she touched her cheek, feeling every tear and every lonely moment of their
marriage together in the act of violence.
"Get back into the bedroom!"
"Fuck you!" She screamed and tore one of the two antennas from the top of her
TV completely off. The wire crackled and sparked, and a fine gray line of smoke
interrupted the cool darkness.
Blinded by fury Sarah jerked out with enough force to jab the point of the antenna
into Brian's outstretched hand. And, for some divine reason, it pierced straight through
the flesh and muscle, tearing the ligament and tendons in the process for his ring and
middle finger. The two fell, useless, against the palm of his hand as he held it up and
looked at the injury incredulously.
Sarah stood still, her breath coming in and out in short gasps as she watched,
unbelieving, as the blood dripped from Brian's hand. It was a trick, she was sure, but
somehow she knew that she had done something. *Drip, Drip*
The Damn sink!
"Don't you ever fucking touch me! Don't you ever lay your hand on me! You
BASTARD!" she screamed, doubling over as tears broke her vindicating words.
Brian was silent, but his blue eyes moved around the room as he held his hand in
the other, wondering what to do. Sarah spotted the phone first and rushed to it, jerking
the cord out. She held the little cream phone in her hand, Brian with his wide blue eyes
was unsuspecting. Of course she wouldn't do it.
"B-Baby?" he asked, holding his hand out as if she hadn't seen or noticed just what
had happened to him. The fingers swayed as he jerked it out, exposing the wound. His
thumb was twitching, ticking to the beat of the dripping sink hitting a pot that was still
dirty from dinner.
"I'm going now, Brian. I'm going to go away and you can stay here and play your
CARD games with the boys as much as you want!" she hissed.
Brian didn't move. He just looked at her and at his hand, then back to her. She
felt her cheeks burning in her rage, fiery red against her skin, blotching out the handprint.
She was shivering outside now, her hand that held the telephone shaking uncontrollably.
Brian was trembling too, and his finger was moving.... back and forth and back and forth.
"Stop!" she screamed and dropped the phone. Brian seemed startled out of his
self-pitying as he heard the phone ring once, as if in a dying moment. He looked at it,
looked at his hand, and then snarled.
Sarah backed away, hearing the sound like an animal from the man she had
thought she had loved. She tried to grab at the phone, but he kicked it away, and it struck
the far wall like a football. Brian held his hand out again and, grimacing in some horrible
pain, jerked the broken antenna out.
It cracked against something. It cracked and he winced and doubled in pain. And
that was the only reason he didn't kill his wife that evening with booze and money on his
mind. He bent over, crying like a puppy who'd been kicked, and wiping blood against his
new wranglers. The jeans he just had to have.
"You aren't going nowhere!" he bit out between sobs and gasps.
Sarah reached behind herself, feeling a door handle, and opened the door. Inside
she could smell fresh laundry and touched the gentle sheets that she laid on the beds every
other week. It seemed fitting to be the linen closet.
"Sarah! Get back here!" Brain demanded as he staggered upright, toppling
backwards, awash in pain. Sarah heard him clatter into the easy chair, and overturn it.
The TV toppled from its stand, and erupted with a single dull pop. Soon there would be
nothing left.
She grabbed the New Years Eve decorations, tossing them into the living room
without a single care if her husband was angered or not. Then, seeing the box, the heavy
and blunt box, she jumped and jarred it with the tip of her longest finger. It moved
forward, and so did Brian. Once more she jumped, and again the box tilted towards her.
"SARAH!" he screamed.
*Drip, Drip*
God, God, the fucking sink. Ohmigawd, ohgod.... the sink, the damn sink he
never fixed! He's up, oh god he's up. God, God, please. Oh god, please!
He touched her hair. She felt him barely brush his brutally lumpy fingers against
her dark chestnut locks and the box fell. Sarah grabbed it, as if catching a long pass, and
then turned. He moved back, again one of the only reasons for her not winding up laying
in a puddle of her own blood. He was frightened, she had already inflicted a severe injury
on him, and he wasn't sure if he wanted anymore.
"Brian!" she yelled.
In the light of the moon his eyes were like shards of glass. They were so pale that
it seemed the whites never ended, until the huge pupil started. She saw his eyes, tried to
see his soul, and saw only the black depth of the pupil staring back. There was nothing
else left. Nothing worth trying to save.
"Here's to redemption!" she proclaimed.
He cringed back, just enough as she brought the box down against the back of his
head, that he fell into the sofa. It was fitting. He spent the most of his time laying on his
back. In the kitchen the sink continued to drip, and drip, and drip. Sarah merely stood
there, in the middle of the living room, holding the box tightly.
Brian's scalp was bleeding, where she had hit it. And he was looking around the
room, dazed and completely unaware of what had just happen. The power had been
switched. She had taken control of a life that she hadn't known to be hers for four long
years... ever since he, Brian, entered it.
"Fix the Goddamn sink!" she demanded.
The clock began to chime.. chiming.... chiming. "Midnight" Sarah muttered to
herself as she looked at the hands against the light blue face. Almost the same color as
Brain's wandering eyes. Then she remembered him, and noticed him reaching out to the
coffee table to get up. He wouldn't lose easily.
Gotta Go, Gotta Go... go... go... go!
Sarah repeated the simple word in her head again and again, like a mantra to make
her feet move. She wanted, more than anything else, to be out of the house, but somehow
there was some poor damaged part of her that wanted to stay and bandage his wounds and
accept his punishments... however mortally dangerous they might be. She fought that part
with the repetition, in beat with the leak in the sink.
Sarah found her purse, fumbling over it in the dark, and searched out her car keys
from his. The last thing she wanted was to drive away in his Ford F-350 while Brian was
laying half-comatose in their shared living room.... Not anymore. She was gone.. she
would go, she was going.
She pushed herself through the door, not looking back and letting it slam closed.
A white door, a little white door on a cream-colored house, with a lawn and a flower bed.
She had wanted all of that, and had wanted to be married. And her job! Her job!
She paused, looking at the house from the driveway, where she had left her little
vehicle parked. It wasn't anything much, just a used mustang that had come to be a little
under 5 grand, when everything was taken into consideration. But it had low mileage,
and....
"What am I going to do?!" Sarah asked herself, asked the night, asked anyone who
would hear her. But no one was out at midnight, no one was there, except for Him. "Are
you listening to me? Are you watching me?"
Of course He didn't answer, He never did. But she wrote her letters to Him
almost every night of her married life. Sarah realized, in mild shock that the box of letters
was under her arm. There was no going back... she only could move forward.
She glanced over her shoulder once as she pulled out the car key and jumped
inside. Somehow, through all she had survived, she was sure that he would get her as she
was driving off. Brian would storm out of the house with his shotgun and blow her away
while she was driving. Then it would really be over.
Gotta go, go...go! Gotta Go!!
She revved the engine, thankful that it kicked into life immediately, and then
backed out of the driveway. Brian didn't barge through the front door with a shotgun, nor
did she see him race out to his truck to track her down. However, the entire time she
drove on the interstate, wondering just where she was going to go, she watched her
rear-view mirror and waited....