At the Park

You have no reason not to believe me. I was there, and you were not. And, yet, you say that the newspaper told it differently?
Of course, they did. What journalist would dare have told what I saw and what really occurred?
You want me to tell you that it was a dark night with a blistery wind that sent shivers down your back? Is that truly what the journalist said?
No, it was not night when this all happened, but the full of day, and I in my t-shirt only shivered when it was over, and then the sun's rays, although they burned me with the heat of an August noon, could not give warmth to the coldness I felt in my soul.
I had strolled out that day for a breath of air and a quiet lunch in the park. There was no hurry. I had used up only minutes of my hour. And although the light was bright, and I had left my sunglasses in the office, I was still enjoying my pleasant walk.
It was when I reached the park that it all began. I was thinking how pleasant it would be when I sat down on the bench and ate my cheese sandwich. I had a can of apple juice with me, and I was by that time rather parched in the throat.
I heard a woman cry out, "I must go home now."
Then a man's voice, deep and heavy with a hollow quality to it, and sunken-in -- as if life had asked too much of him and he had nothing more to give. But, his voice burst forth, and he said, "You will not go. I will not let you."
His words made me stop and turn around and stare. I wondered if I should run to the nearest phone and call for help. There was that kind of desperation in his voice.
The woman with him had beautiful hair, long and curly in a deep auburn brown. She had tied it back with a floppy white bow. She was a pretty girl, and I wondered why she allowed this man to forbid her to go to the place she wanted to go.
They were sitting on the park bench. His arm was around her, not in any sort of romantic way, but as if he could hold her there with his arm across her shoulder and the force of his presence.
The girl was bent over, crying into her hands. "I must leave now," she told him. "You don't understand!"
The man, a gorilla type with muscles bulging on his arms like someone had stuffed water balloons into his sleeves, turned and gripped both of her small, delicate arms. He was staring at her, and I could see his eyes. They were a madman's eyes -- red like the devil's own.
"You are never to see that doctor again," he yelled at her. "Understand me? Never!"
"But...but, I have to," the girl sobbed.
I saw that she was struggling to get away from that monster of a man. My eyes darted all about me. I was desperate to see someone who could offer assistance. What could I do? I had not even my purse to give battle with such a man.
"Let me go," the girl cried out again. "I have to go. If I'm not on time, I'll just die! Don't you see?"
"No," he growled. "I see only that I love you, and you love another. It is the doctor, isn't it? Answer me!"
His beefy hands circled her throat, and he shook her back and forth, ordering her to answer.
"Stop! Stop!" I cried out.
I tore off my shoe and plunged into the struggle. I hammered that man over and over with the heel of my shoe, attempting to break his hold on the girl's neck. I was screaming as if all the fiery depths of Hell were opening up and threatening to swallow me.
As you heard, the neighbors called the police, but it was too late for the girl. Her neck had broken, and she was dead.
I can't sleep nights thinking about how I should have rushed in sooner and saved that poor girl.
The part the newspapers left out?
That's the part that nobody would believe, I'm afraid. The newsmen wrote that it was another case of a husband mad with jealousy. They said he killed his wife because she was having an affair.
I guess that's easier to accept than the truth. There's enough wrongness in that for understanding, but this murder wasn't over an affair. It wasn't like that at all.
It wasn't the girl's fault that her husband was at that brink between normality and insanity -- such a fine, narrow line. He slipped right over it, onto the wrong side.
No, the paper had it all wrong! That poor girl was innocent of any sin. And, if her husband hadn't been teeter-tottering on that line, he wouldn't have been so riddled with jealousy until he couldn't think straight. He would have realized, if he'd been fully sane, that his wife's addiction to a soap opera was not grounds for murder.