Drabble:124
When Tasha was imprisoned, she knew she'd probably be hanged for her crimes. The extent and audacity of her crimes would ensure her execution, and no sane person-much less a lawyer- would come to her defense. So Tasha knew that she was slated to die, perhaps very soon.
She was afraid, but not about her impending death. At least not too much.
No, she was far more afraid of Ibrahim Mazur. Ibrahim Mazur, whose daughter had been imprisoned erroneously for Queen Tatiana's murder, which Tasha had actually committed. Abe Mazur, whose daughter Tasha had shot. Abe Mazur, a man of connections and means, who could very easily arrange for Tasha's make life a living, breathing hell. He could arrange for her food to be poisoned, her time-out in the sun to increase…if it suited his fancy, he could even bribe the guard to beat her up or to spike the blood she was allowed to drink. So, Abe could make her life a real misery, and Tasha was very afraid of what he would do in retribution for Tasha shooting his only child.
Every morning she woke up, thanking the deities for letting her survive another Abe-free imprisoned day and every evening she went to sleep hoping she'd wake up the next morning-still alive. She worried endlessly about when and how Abe would retaliate and panicked whenever anyone approached her cell.
Then, two weeks after her imprisonment, a guard thrust a manila envelope into her cell and ordered her to see the contents in a gruff, authoritarian voice. She stared between the envelope and his stony, expressionless face a couple of times before accepting it. There was no distinguishable marking on the envelope, but for some reason a sense of foreboding filled her. With trembling fingers, she opened the envelope and emptied it's contents onto her hard cot. A couple of photographs landed on her bed, but her attention was arrested by the stationery that landed on her bed. It was piece of paper, with just three words written in a scrawl, but it made her blood run cold. Just three words, that made her eyes widen and breath hitch. It read-Regards, Abe Mazur.
When Tasha was able to regulate her heart rate and breathing rate back to normal, her eyes drifted to the photographs that had landed on her bed. Photos, both posed and candid, all featuring two people-Rose and Dimitri. In some, they were just hugging or holding hands or whispering in each other's ears. But a couple of the photos had to be taken candidly, probably even without Dimitri and Rose's knowledge, for they featured some pretty intense, intimate moments. Their love and passion was undeniable, shining out in even still photography. Tasha was miserably heartbroken by the way Dimitri looked at Rose, like she was the most beautiful thing on earth, and she was also jealous of how Rose loved Dimitri. She felt a little guilt too for trying to come between the duo.
As soon as Tasha had viewed the last photo, her jailer demanded back the envelope and the contents and as soon as she returned them, he left without another word. 5 days later, he was back again, bearing another nondescript envelope, bearing yet more photographs of Dimitri and Rose, these more intimate than the last. Abe had to be paying someone to take the candids of the couple, Tasha deduced, because they'd never have allowed these photos to exist otherwise, they were that risqué. A few days later, yet more photos appeared and more, again.
Tasha realized that this was her allotted punishment, to see how happy Dimitri was without her, to become miserable at how close Rose and Dimitri obviously were, to feel angst and jealously and depression and a hundred other negative emotions. And so this was the punishment Abe decided for her, to realize that everything she'd wanted and hoped for, would never come true, that she'd die knowing that nothing she'd done had changed the outcome of Dimitri and Rose's fate, because that's what she'd been trying to do all along.
Okay, so thank you for reading this and do review!
Also, because the 1st year anniversary of Moments is just a few days away, so I'll be putting up some Moments-related-outtakes, so if you want a prequel/sequel of any drabble, this is your chance, but for now, check out my new story 'Drunken dilemma'.
Cheers!