Escape

The car pulls in. I hear the tires crunching on the gravel, the rumble of the engine abruptly ceases. I hear him. Mumbling, cursing, car door slamming. I tremble and scurry into bed. He's fumbling with his keys. I hear the jingling, the click, the turn and the slow subtle squeek of the door swaying open. He calls my name, I lay still, still silent. I play dead, all to stay alive. Upon my silence he sighs and exhales a sharp and bold "What the fuck!"As his keys shatter onto the table his steel toe Timberlands drop to the hardwood floor of the corridor. I hear him sauntering down to the other side of the house. He's listening, he's searching. I let out a fearsome sing-song breathe. His footsteps freeze. He calls my name again. I close my eyes. He continues, my heart starts racing. He lets out a knowing, satisfied, deep chuckle. His footsteps pick back up, but this time faster, almost as fast as my heart. His shadow casts underneath the crack of the door. It slowly opens. The draft from the hallway sweeps through my covers like a swift hurricane breeze. Its all slow motion now.
Thump, thump... thump. My heart.
Thump... Thump... T.h.u.m.p. His footsteps.
My eyes slowly peel open.
He's standing there. Over me.
Everything zooms into warp speed again.
He viciously rips off my covers like a magician who leaves the china standing still on a dinner table while removing the cloth between. His hand raises, raises real high. I inhale deep. I close my eyes.
I escape.
My eyes flutter open, like a child opening its eyes after its very first night of sleep. I'm calm, safe, euphoric, everything is new. I'm in a bed, a bed of rich green moss. I'm nude, free, alive. I rise from my bed and look above to see trees, taller than the New York City jungle, older than the egyptian pyramids, with bark colored like a deep mohogany armoire and leaves shaded as green as the tint in the Aurora Borealis. I reach out to touch them, and to my amazement they are real.
I see a clearing ahead. I begin to wander over to it. Branches gently crack beneath the soles of my feet while the soil loosely sinks between my toes. My eyes peruse as I stroll forward. The sun is setting. The beams of sunlight and water-color paint like hues dance through the branches and graze over the tree tops, each ray of light creates an almost blinding yet captivating prism as it shimmers through the dew drops that carelessly dangle on the tips of the leaves. The prisms slip away while I watch the dew drops roll down and playfully splash to the ground.
I continue ahead. I part the branches and vines to get through to the clearing. There it is, my paradise. A four foot deep hot spring with polished like rocks and pebbles, steam rising from the surface of the water. The sun has gone past the horizon now, and the clearing above the spring is a silk dark sheet of sky with crystal like stars dancing across it. I sink my body slowly into the Carribean clear water.I lay back as my hair flows in the gentle calm stir of the water. My head lightly bobs so that my entire being is drenched while I remain slowly and steadily breathing, floating, being. No distractions, nothing to keep me awake. I drift. I sink. My eyes close. My escape, escapes. I...
I awake.
It's all real again. I'm six feet under, not under the ground, but under who I was. I'm belittled, frail, weak, beaten, defeated, beaten into nothing. I can't remember. I can't see, but I see flourescent lights, shiny tools, objects, bags of liquids, pills, papers, tissues. I can't see me though. I can't feel me. I can't feel anything.
A woman enters, she looks puzzled yet calm, as am I. She calls, calls something. Calls a name. My name? My name. Then, I hear him call my name just like before. I want to scream but I have no voice. I don't see him but I hear him. I see the woman still. My vision flashes between him and her, then and now. I gasp, gasp. The woman hushes me, sympathetic, "Everythings going to be fine." She's knowing. Knowing what I don't. What does she know? Why don't I? Why is she saying this... these... these things, awful things.
"Beaten"
"Hospital"
"Broken"
"Life"
"Ran"
"Forever"
"Didn't, Couldn't, Tried, Escape."
"Didn't escape. Beaten"

I survive.