By Sara Aziz

Hey readers! I’ve decided to start posting the chapters of the story I’ve been writing on my blog every 2 weeks so that I can get reviews/opinions on my work! I’m posting one chapter per 2 weeks, so please enjoy! This is the prologue.

_____________________________________________________________

Prologue

I heard the nightingale singing softly in the branches that hung high above my head, the willow swaying in the softest breeze. They lifted the casket gently before reaching down to place it in the freshly dug ground that still smelled faintly of dandelions and wildflowers. I didn’t cry, I didn’t shake, I couldn’t feel anything. The sounds of the night seemed to expand, the chirping of the robin deafening, the clanging of the church bell a distant explosion. I knew that to not feel was rare, was wrong. Yet, she was always the one with the big smile, the warm hugs, the constant glow of happiness. My dad’s body convulsed and shook violently with his wails, the tears running down his face like liquid rivers of pain. Those tears seemed to carve themselves into his very being, into the depths of his soul. My mother used to tell me stories. Stories about heaven, and how the angels waited on earth and in the sky to guide you home. Now, it felt like only the demons lay on earth, waiting to steal. Steal lives that were never theirs. I felt the wind pick up as the willows-branches became whips, violent and lively. I didn’t know at the time what the future held. All I knew, was without Mom, I will never heal. She had left a scar in me, a hole that seemed to deepen and hollow with every minute she was gone. And my eyes burned with unshed tears as the nightingale’s song became louder and the wind a jagged cold blade as the earth itself seemed to punish us for putting a body in the ground when it should have been lying in the heavens.

2 weeks later

My body jerked awake as though some invisible force was tugging me to the door. The house was silent. The house was never silent. There were always the thuds from my father trying to exercise himself into exhaustion, the memories of my mother haunting him. They haunted me too. My hands glistened with blood that had poured from my cracked knuckles, my punching bag in the corner stained scarlet. What’s going on? I raced up the stairs into my father’s room, and froze, a fractured, overwhelming feeling sweeping in. The whole world seemed to slow down. There was no noise, no color, no anything. My eyes stayed focused on the white, bloody corpse that was my father. And I felt whatever remnant of a heart I had – bloody and bruised and broken – shatter. How dare he. After everything I had done, all I had suffered, he left me. Now I was here, and he was gone.

Just like her.

His body was twisted on the blanket, his eyes a cloudy white, gun in his left hand. His wrist was ravaged, scarred, and bloody. I put a trembling hand on his neck, searching almost maniacally for the remnant of a pulse.  Proof that I wasn’t all alone, proof that I’m not the only broken thing left. Anything. I sat back on my heels, my heart seeming to speed up to a bursting point, my head growing woozy. Nothing. He was gone. As that thought set in, I keeled over, my legs numb, my heart shattered, the bloody pieces staining and cutting the inside of my chest like dark little daggers. They were gone. They were gone. Everything blurred with the bitter sting of tears, and I couldn’t draw in a breath. It felt like my heart refused to beat. I looked at my father’s cold body again and saw a hint of white peeking out from his right hand, that was curled into a fist. I gently pulled his fingers away to pick up the paper. A note.

My Annamaria,

My dearest daughter. I love you, and you are my gift. But your mother is calling me. Every night, I hear her voice, a whispering echo saying my name. Every night when I hear her, I feel like I’m fading. And every morning, I wake up, just to be killed in the night again. A man can break only so many times before he shatters, my sweet Maria. I love you. But I love your mother. I hope one day, you can find it in your heart, as great and beautiful as it is, to forgive a tired, desperate old man.

Love,

Father

I crumpled to the ground, still clutching the paper, the blood stains seeming to grow larger, the world blurrier. “He doesn’t love you”, the voice in my head taunted. Jeered. No. No. I bent forward, the weight of it all seeming to crush me, force me to the ground, the pain a searing fire, burning me, branding me. He doesn’t love me. He wouldn’t have left me, abandoned me, if he truly loved me. I’m not his Annamaria. Not anymore. And for the last time, I allowed myself to cry. Cry for what could have been, cry for what should have been. Cry all the tears that lay in my soul, so that when I finally rose from the ashes, every tear that fell was a promise of revenge. Finally, my tears seemed to end, my heart seemed to wither, to die. I pulled myself to my feet and, taking one last look at my father, pulled the gun from his cold fingers and left. I paused at the doorway, the hand that was holding the doorframe trembling. Then, I pushed away as I walked away from the place where everything was taken from me. My footsteps echoed in the cold, dark chill of midnight. The fog that had rolled in earlier seemed to thicken. I allowed one last tear to roll down my cheeks before I disappeared into the icy cold shadows of night.

____________________________________________________________

I hope you enjoyed the prologue to my story “A Tale of Murder and Lies”, and please comment if you have any helpful suggestions! Be prepared for Chapter One on April 5th, and keep on reading bookworms!

“All autobiographies are alibi-ographies.” 

Clare Boothe Luce