Don't

Late afternoon, and a weak winter sun is sinking slowly on the
horizon, lonely, she? is alone with her first baby a son, and although
HE is not there this baby she has borne him means he is never
completely away. This, his son is his sentinel watching her always
aware, making sure the feeling of misery is never entirely away from
her thoughts. She feeds him or tries to.

"Don't," she says her voice desperate to be firm, but babies hear the
word don't and to them it's means do, " please don't," she tries; her
agonised plea gets a cheeky, evil? Grin, and food flies from his plate.
Babies are cute but he soon learns to hate and how to induce
hate.

***************************************************************

He is older now and stands confused, alone, he no longer throws food,
for he has other whims that satiate his thirst for hurt, he doesn't
understand this desire, this hunger he... His sleeve is pulled the
tugging irritates him.

"Don't," comes the whinnying voice from behind, he turns and a little
brother disconsolate, in vain gestures to the item in his sibling's
hands. He looks down and sees that he is gripping the body of an action
man, "don't," says his brother desperate almost begging, he again is
puzzled but still he snaps the man doll in two. He smiles.

***************************************************************

He stands alone again by a door looking in, looking into a room where
two people struggle on the floor, one who is trying to impose and one
who is desperate to escape.

"Don't," he says, his father looks up from where he kneels, his
expression raging, furnacing white hot like a potter's kiln. "Don't,"
he says again, but father's fist pounds relentlessly on the twisted arm
of his mother whose neck lays prisoner, pinned beneath of the ball of
his Father's knee.

***************************************************************

She thinks he only wants to mess around, she is confident? too
confident, she thinks she has complete control; she has foolishly been
lured into his web, an alley next to abandoned houses. She could
scream, a scream that no one will hear, but surely she knows him too
well for her to need to do this. She giggles nervously and tries to
resist, but his grip is vice like, his eyes are on fire this and a
malevolent grin she has not seen before causes her to wilt.

"Don't," she says but to teenage boys when teenage girls say don't it
means go ahead and do, remember he learned this as a baby. "Don't,"
even when this is preceded by the word please, only encourages him to
follow this job through. You may have noticed few and in particular
women tell him what to do.

***************************************************************

His grip now holds his own son, this is a boy who must learn
discipline, if he does not then?a voice he's heard so many times
whispers from behind, he looks and there is his wife at the door, she
has felt his wrath many times before.

"Don't," she says, "you'll hurt him."

"That's just what I intend to do."

"But that's our son, he's only a little boy."

"Exactly and he needs to learn."

"Don't please don't," she whispers a defeated sigh, but he punches hard
driving his fist all the way through because he feels he is compelled
to.

***************************************************************

Voices are calling in quick succession, this is a dark place where he
can reach out and touch infinite blackness, these voices whisper, not
taunting him?something else is their intention.

"Don't," now voices new and old are in rapid succession pleading with
him. Now that he is on floor with prisoners rotating between the
doorway and the weight under his knee. "Don't," is repeated again and
again, one by one Mother, brother, girlfriend, wife, son and finally
even he at one time lays prone to the snare of the knee, and someone at
the doorway pleads for mercy, mercy for him.

***************************************************************

It is the end of a dream; one you don't forget when you wake, the
cyclical images of his past, him being spectator, victim and
perpetrator of the poundings made it clear this was a dream with a
message. Stop this cycle. Wake up tell your wife and son no more pain
from now on.

He felt good? that he was big enough? It would take courage but he felt
he could do it while his enthusiasm was at its peak with their help. He
urged himself awake he wanted to begin a new life; light was flickering
at the end of his dream.

His eyes didn't open to the dark of a typical working day, and not in
the warmth of a familiar setting, not the comfort of his home, but to
the sterile pale half-light of a not unfamiliar setting of the ward.
His eyes adjusted to see faces he'd not seen in a while, his mind felt
full of zeal but his body was physically numb.

"Carole?" He calls, his voice shallow and breath painfully brittle.
"Hold my hand."

"It's alright James, all the family are here," she replies.

"Why?" his voice is as thin as a ghostly mist spiriting over a pastoral
lake.

"Just rest now, my sweet James, you have to rest now, when you wake up
I'll tell you, but this is not the time."

"Carole," he croaks, "no more pain, I'll change, I give you my word, my
promise," his eyes closed for one final time, and now his breathing
slowed and his chest slumped, she didn't realise it until now, he was
about to go.

"Don't," she says, "Oh my God? No please don't," as she holds his hand
and collapses to her knees by the bed, the family blanket envelops her
to try to share, to suffocate her grief.

"Don't," she whispers one last sobbing plea, but he had never listened
before, so why listen today? And so true to form when told don't he
went ahead and did.