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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Salt and Pepper (07/24/14)
“Pass the salt and pepper, the feast has begun.”

The main course – feeding on this wretched tiny woman living in malicious spite with her seemingly forever housemate, her embittered pathetic only son – childish, emotionally charged and at times, dully dispassionate. He was blessed/cursed by an IQ of 183, but did not fulfill, his mother’s expectations.

He lived his life to buck her at every opportunity: left college two weeks before his PHD, stopped being a professor at a nearby college and started carrying mail. The most horrific affront to his possessive, obsessive mother was to marry me while she was out of the country.

Slavering jaws dripped close. Equally cradled, tormented, shrieking, unmercifully trapped by devouring demons, she writhed miserably enslaved in her sheer paranoia, excruciatingly ensnarled in her sweaty, once exquisitely costly, now urine-soaked turquoise satin sheets,

She feverishly crawled her way back to reality, awake and aware, then blissfully drew back to sweet unconsciousness.

“Hey! Pass the salt and pepper PLEASE.”

Guilt engulfed her for destroying her only son, as her son relished the thought of besting her.

Pathetically blind, pleadingly deaf, she was literally drowning snuggled in gorgeous flowered downy pillows designed to soften the hardest head.

Cursed with self-hatred so dark, even light
shied and shivered away from her
threatening torments, She, having, almost a century fomenting hate, became prey for demonic vultures circling her exhaustion.

She cursed God for making her suffer the horrors of living hellishly for so long.

Her desolate son, glumly echoing her pain, her grief, sharing his home with her, was fearfully anticipating a similar future of horror, a dizzying ride straight to Hades.

They call it Alzheimer’s, a manic drive to call memories to die.

I call it sin – I was his wife, horrified,
rejecting their extremely contagious demons.

For them I was pepper, not salt – a helplessly fluttering moth struggling in their darkened beam.

I fled.

My flight brought awakening happiness, true love, freedom.

Two lives miserably lived fraught with addiction, hallucinogens overpowering while empowering Satan’s grip.

God has caused me to be salt, too late to preserve their souls.

Dear Lord, I failed and fell, undone
by fear. Restored to a kinship with incredible You Most Divine.

Thank you for Jesus, for restoring my soul, and making me Yours, for loving, watching, forgiving me, and gifting me with Your Life to replace my grief.
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This article has been read 1045 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Toni Babcock 
08/03/14
Interesting perspective here, and a harrowing look into the workings of madness. Continue to work and revise this piece - sometimes less is more; too many descriptive words can bog the reader down, and if you choose the right ones you won't need more for effect. Keep writing! And don't forget to check out the free online writing classes on Faithwriters.
Joe Moreland
08/04/14
I'm not sure how to react to this story. Is it a lament that your mc didn't do enough for the mother and son? Is it a recounting of a terrible experience that she was caught in the middle of? A little of both?

Don't get me wrong, I like not knowing. I like having to think it through and I like the authenticity of feeling involved. I believe that these would be the thoughts of someone who had to live through something like this.

It was very intriguing to read. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Verna Cole Mitchell 
08/04/14
What a terrible picture of life without God you painted here!
I'm glad you escaped to new life and love.
Verna Cole Mitchell 
08/04/14
What a terrible picture of life without God you painted here!
I'm glad you escaped to new life and love.
Judith Gayle Smith-Owens Vitouswykegardinerclark
08/04/14
This was an extremely difficult piece to write. I was emotionally overwrought and it shows clearly here. It is embellished misaligned prose, as I originally struggled to write it in free verse. It is and it isn't non-fiction, as I wrote what I imagined occurred in this dark trial of terror for my first husband and his mother. I accidentally hit "send" as soon as I transferred it from my Word document, so the mistakes are glaring. Kinda fits somehow.
Laury Hubrich 
08/04/14
I really like the emotion. I could feel it deeply. One thing to help you not submit before you're ready - I don't title my piece or put the level on until I'm all ready to submit it. I've looked it over; made any changes...when all that is done, that's when I put in the title and level. If you accidentally hit submit before any of that's in, it won't go on. A clever little trick I learned on accident. :)
Phillip Cimei
08/05/14
Part of every art piece is the artist's soul. Overlooking the mistakes, this is a wonderful expression of you heart agonizing over life's unpredictable circumstances.

I loved it and felt every agonizing moment.

It is a winner to me.
Rachel Barrett
08/05/14
Wow, that was raw and gripping. It felt like a snapshot into the characters' souls. It can be quite frightening to come face to face with the brokenness of our human nature.
Bea Edwards 
08/06/14
Your recollection of the observation of their torment is gripping and horrible.

The enemy of our souls uses horrific methods to keep people bound.

Many times the Light is only sought through depths of darkness.