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promises. He will be good to you. He will cherish you always. Has he not said so?

Sweet, unencumbered surrender.

Yes, yes, to be free again.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Janis Joplin certainly knew of what she sang.

And death came slowly creeping, measuring its pace by the tick of the clock.
*

She barely stirred when she heard the locks turning. She had been dreaming again; this time of her mother, who admonished her to stop this foolishness before it was to late. You have so little time, she said, her form not the aged and bitter woman living out her remaining years alone in some hovel in Florida, but the young and beautiful woman who sang lullabies and told her stories of fairy princesses who lived happily every after. The woman telling her to give in to the demands of this lucid maniac was the very woman who advised her as a child to never give in to the pressures of society. No matter what they take from you they can't take your soul.

Oh, how wrong you were mother. How wrong you were. I am an empty shell. If you could see me now, would you be proud? Would my sunken, hollowed eyes and bleeding gums fill you with pride? Would you cry with joy that I could barely lift my stinking, wasted body from this mattress infested with the stink of my sweat and tears and vomit? Would my struggles please you?

She waited until she heard the door shut and his slow, lumbering footsteps approach the bed before she opened her eyes. They were so heavy. She had hardly the strength to focus her vision, let alone sit up. She lay where she was and gazed up at him blearily.

He looked tired. "How do you feel, my love? I brought you a book," he drew it from behind his back and raised it for her to see, but her eyes could not read the title. "It is called The Fates of Wardrick', by D.H. Moran. Would you like me to read it to you?"

She had not the strength to argue with him, so she merely sighed and moved her hand a little in assent. After all, what did it matter if he read to her? It wasn't as though she would be paying attention. Her time was a borrowed commodity anyway.

The nightly ritual began. He sat on the floor cross-legged and began to read. His voice, beautiful when speaking, was nearly radiant when he read aloud. He was possessed of a tongue that mesmerized and captivated. It rose and fell with perfect inflection, enunciating the words with flawless accuracy. It would have been easy to imagine him playing the role of Hamlet.

As he continued his tale of betrayal of a woman by her lover while living in a small town in France, Sylvie drifted in and out of cognizance, aware not of the madman who had stolen her freedom and ultimately her life, but of the smallness of existence and the uncertainty of our substance in a world where one could disappear without a trace. Were we chosen, or did we choose? And when the cards were drawn and the pot wagered did we not make the best of what we were given? Was it better to die for a larger cause or to live to fight other, smaller battles? And in the end, would our valiance be remembered?

Would she, Sylvia Megan Patterson, be remembered? Would anyone ever know of her fight?

He did not hear her last words, for they were uttered in a breath that was not even a whisper. But if he had, he would have wept bitterly, for to have struggled so hard for victory, only to have it denied was a great loss indeed.

Sylvie herself was not even aware she spoke before the light at the end of the tunnel claimed her. She went quietly into the great unknown, mourned only by the few who believed her dead long before this.

"Go to hell, you bastard."

Learn more about this author, DM Cain.
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