Dalia the goddess

Someone is going to die soon.

I overheard my mother’s sister talking about how life and death flashes before your eyes and I know what she means because I’ve seen it. She spoke about the hoar in a short skirt wearing pig shoes and how karma was a bitch.

It’s been almost five years since we’ve lost someone to the darkness and I know that we’re due. I’m not particularly fond of numbers but I’m aware of the pattern that has weaved its way throughout the lives of my family. The waxed thread of pain and fear, set within the pointed needle of our surname.

My grandfather began sewing the tapestry of destruction way back when he wore a black jacket with a red patch. The symbol of death. He taught his children the essence of fear and foul and don’t fuck with me. He taught my father most of what he knows.

It’s winter and our house is colder than usual and the warmest place to be is in bed. I still curl up underneath the crocheted woolen blanket that my grandmother made. When she gave it to me I was eleven years old and although I’d wished she’d made it in my favourite football colours, I was thankful regardless. She told me that I’d need this and to look after it because it would last a lifetime. She was right. The anxious inducing fear that has always driven me to wrap myself in the security of that blanket has lasted a lifetime too.

The carpet in our house is stained and matted with black dog hair and dirt. Red wine and urine. It is stained with blood and yesterdays answer.

This morning, I peeled back a corner of the carpet near the kitchen to reveal wooden floor boards. The gaps were wide between each plank and I could see the coldness underneath the house. I pushed the carpet back into place and counted my blessings.

I have a Japanese friend who asks me to take my shoes off before entering their house. Consequently, their carpet is beige and plush. Their carpet is clean and welcomes me to lay down on it. Their ceiling isn’t as interesting as mine though. My ceiling is peeling and there are a thousand pictures and stories within it. The stories in my carpet are far less appealing. I recoil from those stories within the cubed crocheted squares of my grandmothers’ love.

I asked my mother once about placing a large weaved basket beside the front door to hold the shoes of anyone who is game to enter our home. She considered the option but my father laughed and said something about me needing to tame my pussy and then to harden the fuck up.

He’s a contradictory man. He uses his fists to dictate and his strong hands to retain. He loves my little sister the most and he says it without any issue. If I were to glance at her sideways with aggravation he would slap me across the back of the head and remind to look after my sister.

He hasn’t taught me well.

My mother deserves better but she never would agree. He has slapped the smile from her face and squeezed her arms so tightly they bled, leaving memories on her skin and another corner of her heart infected.

More blood on the carpet.

A fortnight ago, near midnight, a woman let herself into our house and as she clip clopped across the tiled entry hall she called out for my father. I know she has been here before because her voice is familiar to me now. The other night girls don’t visit anymore. My father has another favourite. She calls out to him softly in the night and calls him sweetheart. I know she is deluded because my father is not sweet nor does he have a heart worth savouring.

Sweet heart, it’s Dalia. Sweet heart wake up.

I know she finds him in the lounge, his breath marinated with bourbon and when she does, she giggles and squeals a little bit and then her pig shoes get lost underneath the dirty brown couch.

My mother is a nurse and she cares for everyone else in the world except herself. I think she has almost given up on my father now too.

Almost.

She still lives here but her stays are less frequent and I know that her brothers house interstate is a better place for her. She will move definitely I presume and my little sister will miserably leave her friends and her king father and I’ll be left here to fend for myself with the swine and the pen that we call home.

On the last night that Dalia (hoar skirt) visited, my mother returned early and I know that she saw the skin and the sweat and the tangled hump of fuck me baby, yeh, yeh, fuck me right there. She made no scene and left as quietly as she’d entered. As she drove away, my fathers intruding dick was still within Dalia and his face reddened by the smudge of exertion.

She returned though and I heard the clang and slide of the utensils drawer in the kitchen.

I lay there and I swear I could hear death arriving again.

The large huff coming from my mother, as she talked to herself about assholes and having enough, seemed to gel perfectly with every footstep she took down the hallway toward the bed where she once loved my father.

Dalia hoar skirt was walking out of the bedroom, carrying a black satchel purse when she was confronted by my mother. Dalia’s hands went above her head and her fuck me baby all the way home nursery rhyme was not heard again. My mother shoved the large black handled carving knife under Dalia’s nose and said, “Get out of my house you stupid fucking piece of meat. GET OUT!”

Dalia left and hasn’t returned since.

Nor has my father.

© ryan

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Tags:

abuse, crime, dalia, needle, pig, pj ryan and thread