Green Eyes

         Layla watches, smiling playfully to herself, as the creature creeps up the leg of Matilda’s chair.  A giggle leaps from her lips before she can stifle it, and she looks up in fear, catching the blazing eyes of her would-be mother.  She quickly looks away, out the window into the world she doesn’t live in, into the world that is dangled in front of her as if to control her.  Layla has always been told that she is a bad girl, and the people in that world don’t like bad girls, so she stays in her hovel, and befriends the creatures that jump from her mind.
         Biting back a sigh, she lets her eyes wander back to the creature on the chair.  Its lizard-like eyes are watching hungrily as Matilda’s grubby hand wanders past its head to retrieve a cigarette from her purse.  Her hand breezes past the creature’s head again as she brings the cigarette to her mouth and lights up.  The creature’s body resembles that of the geckos Layla sees on the TV when Matilda and her father are on the floor in one of their drunken stupors, except it is covered in red feathers, like the bird her mother brought home for her once.  Layla calls this one Roger.
         “Roger doesn’t like it when you smoke.” She says matter-of-factly.
         Matilda looks at the small girl with distain and a kind of hatred that only a heartless woman could bestow upon another living creature.
         “What did I tell you about your little animals?  What did tell you?” she says icily to Layla.
         “That they don’t exist.  But you’re wrong.  They do.  He’s right there, right next to your leg.”
         Unable to fight the impulse Matilda throws a disgusted glance towards the spot that Layla is pointing to, but quickly tries to pass it off by reaching for another cigarette. 
         “Listen to me, you little git.  I’m not going to put up with your little games any longer.  I’m not soft, like your weak-minded mother was.  You stop, and you stop now, do you understand me?”  Matilda lets out a frantic shriek and with that hits Layla across the face with her pale fist.
         Through the searing pain Layla watches Roger scurry into nothingness, and the familiar fear returns to surround her small heart in an icy mist.  As if from the outside of a dirty window looking in, she watches as Matilda stands up quickly, flattens her ugly green skirt, and hurries to the liquor cabinet, grabbing a tall bottle half-filled with a clear liquid.  From a rack of ornate glasses she grasps a squat green cup and pours the liquid to the brim, and with a wince throws the contents down her throat.  With another shriek she hurls the glass in Layla’s direction, who ducks and cries out weakly as it shatters on the wall behind her head.  Layla sinks to the floor and curls into a tight ball, trying to disappear from the dank room with its ragged lace curtains and filthy whitewashed walls.  Disappear into the forest her mother once led her through, singing a haunting melody as they wove between the trees.  Disappear into the brown eyes of a horse she once rode on the back of; into the scent of her mother’s long auburn hair as she pressed her face into it and wrapped her small arms around her mother’s waist; into the safety she felt there.  Far-off, as if she were in a separate room from her body, she can feel the sharp blows being dealt to any part of her Matilda can reach, and she could feel her brittle bones snapping under the force of Matilda’s patent-leather pumps drilling into her side.
         Layla found herself suddenly watching the scene from atop the dirty table in the middle of the room.  She could no longer feel the harsh impact of Matilda’s extremities hitting her body, but she could now hear the sickening thuds.  She looked up from her own broken body lying on the floor to her father standing in the doorway, a defeated, stricken look in his eyes, eyes that no longer shone with the blue intensity they did when they looked at her mother, the eyes of a man whose soul had been crushed for a long time.  She watched as the tears welled up in his eyes, as he stood limp, his hands hanging useless at his sides, as his taxed mind strained to make his body cooperate.  It was as if there were a wall that none of them could see, set between her father and the nearly lifeless body of his daughter, and all he could do was watch as his second wife, a woman who had manipulated her way into his life after the death of his one love, senselessly pounded away.  Layla turned her eyes away, unable to look at a man who was once so alive, and turned her attentions back to rage of Matilda, who faltered, but only slightly, at the appearance of the man in the doorway.  With a single fiery glance at that ghost, she turned back to the small body lying before her, still tightly wrapped around itself in a futile attempt at protection.  Layla jumped from the table and ran to her father, screaming.
         “CAN’T YOU SEE WHAT SHE IS DOING?  CAN’T YOU DO SOMETHING?  DADDY?  DADDY!!”  Through the tears streaming from her bright green eyes, eyes that her father used to look into as he told her how much she looked like her mother, she watched, as if in slow motion, her hand reach out to her father’s limp fingers.  To her surprise his head jerked to the side, as if he had been slapped.  He looked around, confused, and his blue eyes settled upon Layla’s green ones, unseeing, but seemingly knowing she was there, watching him.  Pleading with him.  A light came into his deadened pupils, a light that she never thought she would see again, and he seemed to understand everything.  He let out an anguished yell, the yell of an animal that had been in a cage for far too long, the yell of soul finally released from the bonds holding it in the abyss, and walked right through the imaginary wall, which now lay crumbled on the floor.  With his forward motion came a sensation completely new to Layla, as her feet lifted off the ground ever so slightly, and she felt a release, as if her bonds, too, had been broken, and she looked around to see her father, kneeling, sobbing over her now lifeless body.  She watched as Matilda slowly backed away, a realization coming into her eyes, a horror washing over her face at the sight of what she had done in her rage.  Without a word, Matilda returned to where she had set the liquor bottle down, grasped it in her thin, bloodied fingers, and walked from the room, her face now set in stone.  Layla turned as she passed her, and reached her hand out, letting it pass straight through Matilda’s chest, and with that Matilda came to a halt, and a fear like Layla had never seen in another human being showed in Matilda’s stone-grey eyes.  After a pause, Matilda pressed the bottle to her lips, Layla could hear the liquid as it burned down Matilda’s throat, and then she hurried from the room, leaving Layla alone with her father and her lifeless body.
         Layla drifted closer, and watched as her father, his face now stained and blotchy from the salty despair running down his weathered cheeks, gently lifted her limp body from the cold floor.  He took her into his arms and cradled her, held her tightly to his chest in a way he had never done before, and let out another anguished moan, a moan full of questioning, of anger, of loss.  He heaved himself onto his feet and began to walk towards the front door of the house that he and her mother had built from the ground up before Layla was born, and reached for the handle with his left hand, while he strained to protectively cradle the body with his right arm.  As the door swung inward orange light flooded the room, and the room drank it up, as if quenching a thirst of 100 years, and squinting, her father crossed the threshold, bringing Layla’s body into the world that Matilda had so cruelly held her from.  With curiosity, Layla drifted behind her father, who, after leaving the door open, set out across a field, his face bathed in a golden glow that reflected in his now fiery eyes.  She followed him as he marched slowly towards the woods at the heart of their property, the same woods that she had, many, many years ago chased her mother through in a game of hide and seek.  As they entered the woods she realized where he was headed.  Although she had never been allowed there, she had once overheard her father discussing the place with Matilda, a discussion that ended in another one of their numerous battles.  With renewed wonder at this realization, she followed her father a little closer.  His heavy footsteps broke through the silence of the trees as they neared a clearing, at the center of which stood an angel, carved from white marble, an angel which, Layla saw as they drew closer, possessed a face that had kept her safe many nights, a face that had haunted her dreams, a face that had followed Layla into every battle she had waged with Matilda, the face of her mother.
         Her father approached the grave, and with a deep sigh, he lay Layla’s fragile, defeated body on the emerald grass in front of the statue, and then lay himself next to it, and with the tenderness a father can have solely for his only daughter, wrapped his arms around the body and closed his eyes.  A smile surprised Layla as it crept across her lips, and as she stared down at her father, who had seemingly immediately entered a deep slumber, an auburn flash caught her eye from the woods.  She looked up towards the trees, and saw slender hand disappearing behind a sturdy pine.  Layla drifted across the clearing towards the tree, and as she neared it a hope sprang up, but as she rounded the tree all she found was empty space.  As disappointment washed over her, she uttered two questioning syllables.
         “Mommy?”  With that quiet word she turned back towards her father, but stopped mid-turn as a familiar face stepped into view, as if materializing from the last of rays of sunlight streaming through the canopy.  Without a sound her mother glided across the small distance between them, and with teary eyes regarded her daughter, who could do nothing but smile into the long ago face.  Wordless, her mother wrapped her in her arms and hugged her close, held her for what seemed like eternity, an eternity that could never end for all Layla cared.  When her mother released her, they looked into each other’s eyes, the twin greens locking in a questioning stare.  A flash behind Layla broke the gaze, and as they turned towards the clearing they were met with the beam of a flashlight, and five figures silhouetted against red and blue lights in the distance.  Layla could make out the huddled form of Matilda, pointing towards Layla’s sleeping father.  Three of the other forms made their way towards the two bodies lying still on the ground.  Entering the pool of light, two policemen hoisted her father off the ground as he looked dazedly around, and put handcuffs around his wrists.  As he caught sight of Matilda simultaneous realization and hatred filled his blue eyes, and with surrender in his step he allowed the two men to lead him out of the clearing towards the flashing lights.  A policewoman gingerly picked up Layla’s body, a single tear escaping from her right eye, and carried her in the same direction.  With this, Layla and her mother followed the crowd back towards the edge of the forest, stopping at the edge of the field, and watched silently as her father was pushed into the backseat of a police car, a painful guilt glinting in his eyes.  They watched as Layla’s small body was carried into a waiting ambulance, and as a falsely hysterical Matilda told lies about her father, lies to save her self from what she knew she had done.  They watched as the somber group loaded into their vehicles and turned the wheels back towards the nearby town.  And as they watched the brake lights fade into the distance, Layla turned her gleaming green eyes towards her mother’s tear riddled face, lit by the pale moon, and said with the innocence and hope of childhood,
         “Mommy?  Show me the world?”