Aftermath

Artwork by Phil Burns

This challenge is produced by GirlieOnTheEdge with the following simple rules:
Write six sentences, no more, no less.
Use the current week’s prompt word – ERUPTION

Aftermath

She paces back and forth in her hut, hands balled into tight fists at her sides, and as she stamps down on the earthen floor, she spits hatred through clenched teeth.

She is a caged lioness, starved of vengeance and straining to be released.

Years have passed since that day and – eventually – she has learned to live with what he had them do to her in the bloody chaos after the battle, she has learned to make her son the gift of that day.

Seeing the man again for the first time, coming face to face with him in the square this morning, the sudden eruption of violence within her has her gasping for air.

The hard work of all the days in between, the belief even that she has understood and forgiven him, all of this has evaporated in the heat of her burning need to reach up and scratch the eyes out of his head, pound on his body till he begs for mercy…

She is that caged lioness – and the cage has no key.


(I read the following sentence in John Steinbeck’s Burning Bright, and, from that, this story was born. ‘His eyes were glazed with hatred and the inability to put it to violent use.’
Of course Steinbeck didn’t need six sentences to capture the idea!’)