THE POWERFUL AND THE POWERLESS

The Powerful and the Powerless

He fired three shots¦.
She sat in the corner of a very dark room. Tears fell down her cheeks. What had she ever done to deserve this? It was a very mad and confused world. And today was her birthday. And today things usually were at their worst. She closed her eyes and waited¦
He was a very powerful man. He lumbered in drunk. He just didn't get it. Why was his daughter so afraid of him? He never ever laid a hand on her. He was a sex addict yes. And had looked at her distastefully once every moon. And he was damned ashamed of his behaviour. But these teens barely thirteen and the way they dress? But he kept it to himself. Could she read his mind? Was she afraid of him around? He had tried to commit suicide several times¦Why did god keep him alive? He wondered. For he was sure that he was the devil reincarnated.
The mother and ex-wife of the two lay dead in her coffin. A whole two weeks. Her daughter went to the care of the drunken father of her child, temporarily. The whole neighbourhood gossiped the travesty. The slut of a girl going to the drunk¦
Why couldn't Simon the boyfriend of the mum and police officer get custody? Nothing but evil can come of it they said.
And so it was that he came in. Some part of me thinks that he wasn't drunk and that he deluded himself into a drunken stupor. Still the room spun around him as he approached to cry into his daughters fear. Upon opening the door, he heard her muffled cry. "Please she cried, "it hurts so badly. He stood lost for words; he himself lost for words for being drunk in depression. "Please Simon don't. Upon hearing that he froze in horror. He staggered to and fro. Simon? Oh fucking hell. All this time he was only deflecting his own problems onto his little girl. His therapist was right one day he would have a moment of clarity and see that he had never actually wanted any of the things he yearned for. He had always said no. The room spun again. "SIMON he roared. He swallowed hard as the fear in his heart mixed with the last legally available drug took its course. He fainted to sleep. His girl still shook with fear though not uttering a word. She kept his eye on him. Sometimes Simon liked to pretend to be her father. She looked up at heaven and wished that the lord she believed in was hearing her now.
He woke up with a shattering head close to 3am. He struggled to get up. He crossed into the kitchen in the dark and through to his shed where he kept his shot gun. He couldn't bear the weight of life. He closed his eyes whilst walking across the street with house parties celebrating the New Year with loud music. Living for pleasure; that was all people do these days he thought. A fifteen year old was straddling her girlfriend and asked him to join in. "No he said. No.
He stumbled through the one house with no lights on with a blinding headache. He walked in through the front door with his wife's keys and up the stairs into the left bedroom. It was lit in red light. On the floor he saw a girl. It was the missing Muslim girl from down the street. She was handcuffed to the wardrobe handle, vomit on her clothes. She had just an ounce of more hope on her face then the corpse on the bed. Yes, there was his newly buried wife in bed with Simon. Fucking hell he thought through his fatigue. Perhaps it was the drink speaking. He opened up his eyes wide and saw Simon on the bed beside the corpse. He couldn't take his eyes off him. He fired three shots. One into Simon and one through the handcuffs of the Asian teenager. He was about to take his own life when he heard the girl uttering those simple words: thank you. To which he turned when he pulled his trigger and thus missing his brain by a whisker. And fortunately or unfortunately for him (however you may see it), he had on his person only three shotgun bullets. And thus it came to be that he cried into the morning for once being¦