Short Stories

Null
by Neva LaRue Brown

If a woman is lonely, alone, afraid
Without friends or lover or family
And only the angry, hate-filled spouse
Fills her life with fear and pain
Where does she turn for a touch each day
How does she nurture her soul or find
A way to smile and recover the lost laughter
If the pain buries her beneath the weight
Until each breath is a well of cold terror
Where does she look for the ray of light
How can she ever find anything more
Than the dark, dry existence she lives each moment
If her life has been over since the day it began
A pointless odyssey of colorless despair
Where will she find a safe haven
How can she even dare to dream of love
When full she knows she’ll never live it
And why would she ever want to go on
Live out her years with no touch on her skin
Or in the depths of her aching soul
That does not come from the red heat of anger
What does she have that’s worth savoring
Or dreaming for or reaching for in time passing
And why would it surprise anyone at all
If one day she should pour out a handful of pills
And swallow them in groups of three or five
And sit back in the chair by the window
And watch the gathering dusk of both the day
And her life as they come to an inky end.

© nlb August 6, 1997
Copyrighted material; do not reprint without permission.

Judy Malloy
[email protected]
Artist/writer/editor, Judy Malloy has been writing hypernarratives on the Internet
since 1986. In 1994, her leg was shattered when she was hit by a car while riding
a bicycle, and the resulting disability and PTSD permeate her works.

Ms. Malloy’s works are located on two different
web sites:

“The Roar of Destiny Emanated
From the Refrigerator”
http://www.well.com/user/jmalloy/control.html
Which has an interface based on PTSD
“Name is Scibe”
http://www.artswire.org/Artswire/interactive/www/scibe/story.html
Which is a collaborative work created during her recovery from a traumatic, disabling
accident.

Suzanne
Stutman
http://www.idealist.com/feather/
Dr. Stutman is a Professor of English,
American Studies and Women’s Studies
at Penn State University. She is the author of four books and over two dozen
articles. She has participated in cooperative exhibitions with the UNICEF
Organization and other Non-Profits. She is a survivor of childhood sexual
abuse. “I believe so deeply that we, as artists who have been so wounded yet
have
survived to sing, to tell, to create a world of beauty which enriches life,
have a special gift and purpose as healers.”

‘”Suzanne Stutman’s beautiful, poetic and moving book, “Broken Feather,’ expresses the terrible, confusing, lonely emotional world of the abused and neglected child. It is also a heartening reminder that, alongside being scarred, it is possible to transcend childhood trauma and deprivation — and, surprisingly enough, that such an assault on the soul of the child can, sometimes and somehow, lead to, as well as stifle, artistic creativity.” — Leonard Shengold, MD “This thoughtful, honest and passionate collection of poems and pieces will immediately touch any survivor’s soul. Beautifully written, it shares a personal and universal healing journey for survivors of incest and sexual abuse. It is truly a gift.” — Virginia Klein, PhD This book can be bought from the publisher: Manor House Publications 3501 Newberry Road, Philadelphia, PA 19154 To order by telephone: 1-800-343-8464

Taken from the book “Broken Feather:”

After the Breaking

After the breaking, after the shattering, I stood
in pieces, staring at the pieces of myself sparkling in the darkness like the tips
of stars emerging on a cloud-filled night. Delicately, so I would not bleed, and
so the remaining shell would not chip away or fall to the ground leaving me only
a part of the dark night sky with nothing to frame me, I searched with eyes shining
for each fragile piece of myself so I could find the proper place and pain stakingly
recreate my being.

And sometimes it seems to me as if I have also patterned
within me the brightly colored fragments of other selves lost, scooped, sifted and
tipped, sparkling, into the corners of my soul. So that, the fathered by the night,
suckled by the pain, motherless and fatherless by day I lay me down darkly and wait
until the pieces, caught by the passing light of soaring stars, are fired by bursts
of color, and I see in my reflection, life, and I understand that the pain will seal
my edges and I will emerge and, like the rainbow, arching the new sky with glory,
somehow, survive.

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