Clashing Extremities

I cowered, completely afraid of the scene before me. I sat there in the corner, curled into fetal position, staring wide eyed at my mother and father. She was already dead, I knew that much. Except he kept on going, just kept kicking and punching her with all his strength and ramming her head against the walls and dining table. I knew I wouldn’t be eating there for a long time. Our plates were scattered and broken everywhere around the dining room, on my mother, on me. Then he stopped. Just dropped her cold dead body on the floor and walked right out of the room like he always did after dinner.

This wasn’t the first time he hurt my mother or me, but this was the first time he killed her. Long after I heard their bed room door shut I stayed in place, stock still. Then once the snoring began I rushed over to her, wiping away the bloody hair from her face and kissing her cheek one last time. Before this she told me to never call the police, said they were bad people who would take her away from me. Except she was gone now and they weren’t the ones who took her away. So I called them.

“911, what’s your emergency?” A lady spoke from the other side loudly and I hushed her like the way I hushed the cry babies in the library.

“He killed my mom.” I whispered, strangely calm.

“Who killed your mother and where are you?” She asked suddenly alert.

“My daddy. She’s not breathing and she’s cold and he just left and went to sleep.” I started stuttering and sobbing; now that I said it out loud it was final. She was dead.

“Where are you, honey?”

“73 Oak Street. I’m scared miss. He’s still here and I can’t hear him snoring anymore.” I sobbed harder the sound filling the room.

“The police will be there soon sweetie; I want you to keep talking ok? Tell me everything that’s happening and what happened earlier.” I heard other people on the line now, talking to other people who might have been in my position or worse.

“He did this a lot but he ne-never went this far. And Mo-Momma always said the p-police would take me far away and we’d never see each other again a-a-and that I’m not su-sup-supposed to call.” I started crying really hard. And she shushed me like I had her. Except in the moment of the silence I heard his footsteps and I ran to hide. It wasn’t such a smart move but I hid inside the vase Momma had gotten when I was three. “He’s coming.” I stuttered and she attempted to calm me down as his footsteps got louder and louder. I heard sirens in the distance and I knew he did too when the footsteps stopped and he said a bad word. The kind Momma never liked hearing and told me to never say. The lady on the line said something and it echoed against the vase, loud enough for him to here. I don’t know what happened after. I just heard shattering glass and saw blood drip into my eyes as sirens wailed outside.