A Moment of Anger by Brenda G. Howard

A MOMENT OF ANGER

Maybe it was the full moon that hung in the sky like a parent looking over your shoulder that made him paranoid. Maybe it was the quiet stillness of the warm summer evening. Maybe the evil floated in on a southerly breeze--not noticed until it was too late.

Sammy thought of these things briefly as he felt the warm flow of his life draining from his body. His vision blurred and then cleared again. The effort of sight was too much for him and he slowly closed his eyes. His eyelids moved smoothly over fluid. Tears? It can't be. It was too late for tears. Maybe if he had cried then, he wouldn't be crying now.

He closed his eyes but it did not help. The massacre was still present in the smell of death. The acrid sweat created by the bodies in an instant of complete and total fear touched his nose. The air was mixed with the smell of urine and feces excreted in a final act of life--involuntary as death itself.

Sammy felt no physical pain--it was a temporary reprieve. The absence of this suffering allowed room for the pain of his soul. The blinding blackness of horror caused a dawning of realization. It became a time of reckoning.

For the first time in his life, Sammy has no one else to blame. Everyone was dead. His entire family was gone. They were the only people who ever really loved him. What had happened?

He struggled to remember the anger that consumed his body and forced him to end their lives. The anger was elusive--like the butterfly that refuses capture. The sorrow that filled his body leaves no room for the anger, even if he could find it again.

Sammy felt the warm blood flow like a stream in the grooves of the wood floor as it touched his hand. The thick liquid repulsed him. Reflexively, his hand moved away from the sensation. It was a small movement, but enough to cause the pain of a lightning bolt, striking at full force, to run up his arm and into his chest.

An involuntary shudder rippled pain throughout the rest of his body. With eyes wide open again, he faced the scene of his creation. A macabre masterpiece sculpted from his misdirected passion.

Lila was a vision of beauty, even in death. She was the woman he loved. The woman he took to be his wife. The mother of his child was but a child herself. Her auburn hair flowed freely over the armrest of the worn chair.

His heart skipped a beat as he looked into her blank, brown eyes. She stared blindly at the ceiling. The cheap light fixture was not worth her effort. Taken aback, he was shocked by the gaping hole in her chest, until he remembered the sound of the shotgun blast that caused it. Reliving the moment, he felt her warm blood splatter across his arm.

Sammy breathed deeply to stop the panic that was rushing through his mind. The stabbing pain stopped the breath short and he forced himself to take several shallow breaths. Unable to control his body, his torso slid further down the wall of the living room until he was lying on the floor in a prone position.

He saw the body of his daughter, Amy. A miniature version of Lila, she was laying on her hardwood deathbed. An expression of sheer terror was frozen on her face. Sammy wondered where her dimples had gone. Why wasn't she happy?

Anger slowly seeped into his being for a second time on this moonlit night. This isn't how it was supposed to be. He tried to focus. A kaleidoscope of thoughts swirled in his mind--the thoughts ever changing in shape. The strength of his anger increased as his frustration mounted. Clarity finally reached his consciousness.

This was his family. No one could take his family from him. His anger gave him strength. His family tried to leave him and that was what had happened. Now the family would be together forever. They could never leave him.

He smiled momentarily as he realized his accomplishment. The smile never reached his eyes though. His moment of success was brief as he viewed the scene before him one last time. His anger and passion leave him again, like deserters on the battlefield, gone forever. Sorrow, his only friend, has filled his soul as the cold slips through his body replacing his life with death.

Note: This story is being used by a school in Texas to teach the adult students the importance of anger management. (1996)