Stay Home, Stay Safe

Often home and safe do not co-exist, often there is no choice to be safe when being confined to “home”. I, myself, am lucky. No — privileged. I packed up some things and got myself home. Not to my apartment, but to my home; to safety. Here I have; my loving family, no shortage of food, internet, weed and, maybe most importantly, a safe space.

I shudder to think of the young woman sitting now, at 08:34am, enjoying the last moments of peace before her husband wakes up. He’d sleep in until 10am, he’d been drinking again. He’d been angry again. Just as I am sitting, she sits. But her posture is upright; her body tense, alert. Her eyes heavy. Her skin in patches of brown and blue and yellow and green.

She looks out into the distance through a half-misted window in the small holding she stays in. The air was chilling; the last couple of mornings had felt increasingly colder. She could feel this especially in her cheekbone, the ache sung beneath her eyes on the bad days; the swelling had still not gone down. Her silver lining was that she had to make up no explanation to her family. She did not want them to worry for her. They already cared for her daughter. They also, along with herself, depended on his salary.

Its day 11 of the lockdown. She reminded herself that she had passed the halfway point. She almost rejoiced. She then reminded herself that it was her day 782. It had been almost a year since she had seen her daughter and just over two since her wedding; the night that altered her life. The night she stopped living, and started surviving. She took a deep breath and got up. She stood above him for some time. Lying on his front, he spread across the mattress. His breathing harsh and irregular. His grey vest with faint red splatter. She was good at getting rid of blood stains.

She glanced toward the other corner of the room where she washed dishes and cooked meals. She imagined the knife, that lay drying, in her hand; her fingers tightly wrapped around its grip. She was staring down at him with her fist clenched as if she had picked the utensil up. She inhaled deeply. In her exhale her hand relaxed. She reminded herself of the promise she had made. When the day came, she could not take him out in his sleep; with him peaceful and unaware. She would look him in his eyes and watch his power drain and drip slowly into the dirt. This was her morning ritual. She started tidying up.