It was how his parents raised him. He would have swore by it if confronted and it was partly true. He grew up in a rural area; corn fields and rolling green hills underneath a sky as blue as the irises of his eyes. And his child's.
Nature was merely aesthetic wallpaper to what was truly a hideous environment nurtured by the brutal attitudes and nonchalance of its inhabitants. They weren't all like that, of course, but a good number of them were to allow for there to be children with skin coloured black and blue where the eyes of those of them who weren't abusers would look and then just turn away. He was once one amongst those children.
The family model he grew up with was flawed and many years later his daughter was marked black and blue too. But then again that's only partly why. There should be no mystery as to entirely why he'd done it. Because it feels good, of course. It feels good to reclaim some sense of power even if it was by kicking a helpless child. As a matter of fact, especially by kicking a helpless child who has no chance of fighting back and so skewing the power balance.
At the end of the day it's always about power. There is no other allusive, involute reason that prevails over the simple fact that he's a vile character with no backbone. After all, not all those who were abused become abusers. In spite of all sinking helplessness, at some point everyone must make a crucial decision and that's where the line is drawn between the strong and the weak; between the bettered and the broken.
His daughter, 13, is strong and better. She decided it but not before the brutality of her father would fester in her mind and warp it somewhat. But she wouldn't let her sorry upbringing become an excuse. Well, maybe just once she would. He had hurt her beagle and he was starving it. She decided one morning she would feed it herself but when she ventured to the humming refrigerator she only found spoiled fruit and cans of beer. It might had saved the father's life if he had lingered for a moment longer at the grocery store after picking up the beer to also at the very least grab a can of tuna.
For at the sight of the virtually empty refrigerator, she made up her mind to make a meal out of the fleshy, sweating specimen lounging for hours behind a computer screen like a permanent fixture. Not for herself of course. She was a young lady after all. It was for the malnourished dog that she loved so much. And so, Blood had trailed from a drenched armchair to the kitchen to the bowl where the beagle gnawed. She had brought out a bucket and a mop and tide her hair in a bun. She wouldn't let her upbringing become an excuse.
She needed to become hardworking, thorough and productive. The washed tiles reflected her youthful face. This girl wouldn't ever operate to reclaim any kind of power. She would operate for the sake of self-preservation alone.
Submitted August 06, 2017 at 11:09AM by shad0wy http://ift.tt/2uvCcY0 shortscarystories
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