The Dark Yarn
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| Taken from http://nigelk.org |
“Push, twist, pull through. Push, twist, pull through.”
That was all that went through Cedi’s mind as she frantically knitted. Her dirty blonde, uneven hair was untied and falling over her pale face. Her eyes were sunken deep into her head, her lips chapped, and she didn’t care about the beads of sweat rolling down her face. All she had in her mind was knitting.
“Push, twist, pull through. Push, twist, pull through.”
She gripped the knitting needles and yarn so hard that her nails had turned white. Pain throbbed in her lower back from sitting slouched for so long on the stool. There was a small, round table right beside her but she never took notice of it. The pain hardly made her budge.
So engrossed in knitting was she, that she didn’t hear the door crack open behind her, or her daughter Heidi walking in.
A splitting image of her mother, Heidi was tall, fair and had a pretty, oval face. Hidden under heavy makeup and messy hair, she too, had signs of sleep depravation. She had just returned from school, and as usual, ignored the hunched figure sitting in the living room.
A hormonal teenager, she was growing more irritated with her mother each day. By night, she wished her mother dead.
Heidi banged the door shut.
No response from her knitting mother.
She threw her bag across the room and walked into the kitchen shaking her head and cursing under her breath. She dreaded the time she had to come home.
There was no food in the fridge or on the stove. “Of course,” she thought, “when was the last time there was any home-cooked food in this house?”
She found an old packet of milk, almost near expiry and poured some into a saucepan. She lit up the stove and put the pan on. Then she went to rummage for the bottle among the pile of unwashed dishes in the sink. By the time she had found it and washed it, the milk was ready and she poured it into the bottle.
The bottle in one hand, she strolled out of the kitchen, noticing her paranoid mother from the corner of her eye. She sulked and quickly walked away so as not to get any more infuriated by the sight of her mother.
Heidi walked into her mother’s bedroom, her room, and then checked all three bathrooms, but she didn’t find what she was searching for. She retraced her steps once more, but what she was looking for was still missing. She went outside. Not there either.
She came back in and didn’t hesitate to show her anger and impatience, throwing things on the floor in her search.
Cedi hardly noticed what was going on. “Push, twist, pull through.” That was all that concerned her.
Heidi checked every nook and corner, and finally decided to try the storage room. Swearing under her breath about how stupid it was of her to search here, she pulled the heavy door open and stood there in the dim light. Her eyes didn’t adjust to the darkness of the air-tight room.
Switching on the lights, she was taken aback by what she saw. There was blood all over the room. The bottom part of walls were filled with small hand prints, and she saw her baby brother’s mangled body sprawled on the floor. He had just started crawling the week before, and now, here he was dead. Murdered! Stabbed to death and disfigured. A waste of young life.
Without realising, she broke into a panic attack. She stood rooted at the door and couldn’t take her eyes away from her little brother’s body. Yes, she’s thought he was an unnecessary addition to the family. Yes, she thought he only took away her freedom. But she had loved him. He was still her younger brother; her flesh and blood.
She leaned onto the wall for support, tears of fear and confusion rolling down her cheeks. She knew who had done this. There was only one person who could have done it.
“This is it,” Heidi said to herself. “I’ve had enough of this. I cannot live with this any longer.”
She walked slowly to the living room, holding a baseball bat. When she could finally get a control on her thoughts, she’d quickly grabbed hold of the first thing that came to her mind.
Walking up behind her mother, she said, “For better or for worse, Mom, I wouldn’t have this any other way.”
Cedi stopped knitting. A cold chill ran up her spine, and before she knew it, something had struck the back of her head.
Cedi was thrown off the stool and before she hit the floor, came the next strike.
Heidi hit her mother with all the force she could muster. Even when Cedi fell on the floor and didn’t move, Heidi couldn’t bring herself to stop. She cried and yelled at the body that used to be her depressed, demented mother.
Finally, when she stopped, she threw the bat to the side and walked back towards the wall. She needed the support.
She looked around. The furniture and walls were splattered with her mother’s blood. Her knitting was still in her hands, now red with blood.
Heidi slowly stood up and walked to the land phone. She punched in some numbers and waited. After three rings, a man answered the phone.
“Dad, I killed mom.”
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