Long, Blonde Hair

“Brush my hair.” She demanded, holding the brush out to me.

“My hands are getting bad with my arthritis, can you give me a break?” I replied. I held my hands up to clarify. They were bent and twisted out of shape. That was what working in construction did to you. Construction had also helped cause the anger that I had built up in me. I had almost beat a man to death using a hammer, I had had a few years in jail.

“The exercise of this will help you.” She turned and stared at me. Her face making it clear I had no option.

“Maybe.” I knew it wasn’t true, it just caused shooting pains up my arm. I began slowly pulling the brush through her long, blonde hair. I was trying my best to ignore the pain, but it wasn’t going away. It also was doing nothing for controlling my anger. The brush suddenly jerked in my hand and she let a short scream.

“What are you doing? Are you trying to rip the hair out of my head?”

“Enough! You are the grand-daughter. I am the damn adult in this house, you are only 15. How can you demand things of me?” She had tears in her eyes, but I was too far gone to notice at that time.

“But-” I picked up the nearest thing to me and smashed it over her head. It was a statue, a miniture statue of The Thinker. She dropped like a rock and didn’t move.

“Laura. Laura, get up,” I had led on the floor with her blood spreading over my clothes and let her die. I later learned that she may have survived. She may have survived if I had called for assitance immediately. But I didn’t, I couldn’t. I had lifted her body, and not knowing what to do with it, dumped it in the lake at the bottom of my garden. Her body floated and I couldn’t have that. Someone could have found her and I would go back to prison. I couldn’t deal with that. I sat next to the lake and rocked.

Forward, backward. Forward, backward. Forward, backward.

How could I stop her floating? I tied something, I wasn’t sure what it was, to her. It may have been the statue that had disappeared by the time I got back to my house. She sunk to the bottom and stayed there, but in the sunlight, her hair still glistened in the sunlight.

~~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

“I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t.”
“Sir. Mr Clapson, listen to me. What didn’t you do?”
“No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Nooooooo!”
“Sir. Sir, are you okay? Oh my. Can we get an emergency team in here?”

My life ended and my last thought was how wonderful it felt to run the brush through her long, blonde hair.