The Old Bitch sat in her garden.

It was a beautiful autumn’s day in Brittany, the sun was shining and a crisp wind with the promise of winter brushed against her face. Ladybirds were crawling over the last bloom of roses and the odd cheeky sparrow swooped down hoping for some crumbs from the table. Somewhere in the distance, she heard the cry of a bird of prey, a buzzard or hawk that was out hunting for its victim. This noise pleased her, as all was as it should be.

The law of the claw......

A Psychedelic Revenge Story.

The Old Bitch sat in her garden.
It was a beautiful autumn’s day in Brittany, the sun was shining and a crisp wind with the promise of winter brushed against her face. Ladybirds were crawling over the last bloom of roses and the odd cheeky sparrow swooped down hoping for some crumbs from the table. Somewhere in the distance, she heard the cry of a bird of prey, a buzzard or hawk that was out hunting for its victim. This noise pleased her, as all was as it should be.
The law of the claw.
The strong killing the weak.
She had learnt that from her years as a psychiatric nurse. All those lunatics dribbling and masturbating and crying, they were weak, nothing more. Mental cripples.
This was before she had met her late husband and had tricked him into marrying her by becoming pregnant. Another weak man.
She surveyed her Queendom, a house and a garden that she owned. That she had swindled and cheated and abused all others to get. Even her own family.
The table was set out for a typical French Sunday afternoon lunch ; a carafe of wine, a platter of cheeses, some apples, some vegetables, bread and a big slab of ham.
Looking at the ham, she sipped at her wine and remembered her old uncle screaming as they took him to prison. She had told them that he had abused her, that he had made her her put his thing in her mouth and suck and lick at it. He hadn’t of course, she had flirted with him and he had always kept his distance from her, so she had decided to punish him. She was a good little liar, even at fifteen. Her uncle shouldn’t have protested so much, he had been a butcher after all. He had made his living off the death of others.

Sat across from her was her son. Her little boy. Frederic. Her only son (she had once had a daughter too but she had married a nigger, so was no longer welcome at this table).
She fixed her son with hard stare and told him to pass her the butter. Obediently he did as she bid. He was such a good boy, he always did what his mother told him to. She knew that he feared her. She also knew that this was the only way to guarantee anybody’s love. True love could only be gained if one half of the relationship dominated the other.
His father had known this and had left the only way he could.
But not her little Frederic.
Oh no, he was going to hers for ever and ever.
She smiled at him as she thought of the time he tried to escape her. How going to Holland and meeting that Dutch girl could have been a way out. But in the end, she had brought them both back there. Back where he belonged. With his mother.
And when they wanted money they stole it off the Dutch slut. They knew she was rich and she always protested but Frederic talked to his mother and she gave him some good old motherly advice.
«Beat her », she had told him, « …beat her and take it, for your mummy ».
And like a good son, he had.
When the girl had outlived her usefulness, The Old Bitch had simply set up a situation where the girl was stood at the top of the stairs and her son had pushed her.
Just a small push, girls these days are so fragile.
It was her own fault. She had had more than them.
The accident report had been made easier with the fact that her daughter was dating the head of police (a married man to be sure but better than the nigger, at least. And a man in his position didn’t need his wife finding out).
The Old Bitch was smiling with staisfaction as she cut a slice of ham.

The afternoon was a quiet and pleasant one with the only noise being the wind and her talking, while her son stared pathetically down at his plate, mumbling this and that, knowing he wasn’t being listened to. She talked about the best things to eat while scolding her son for slouching or the best way to avoid his getting work and being parted from her.
The sun was moving slowly on its lazy path across the sky.
It was waiting.
Suddenly, the sunlight shone in her face as she took a bite of bread with cheese. She closed her eyes to protect them and cursed at it and when she opened them she smelt something odd, something rotten. She stared at her feast in front of her. It was crawling with insects, brightly coloured ladybirds were everywhere, in the cheese and the wine, crawling over the ham, everywhere.
Then she heard her son cry.
Frederic was twelve years old again and had just found his father in the garage, the old man’s body was swinging gently in a rythym. An electrical cord had been bound tightly around his neck and his tongue protruded out of the side of his mouth. A weak man.
The Old Bitch ordered him to stop crying but the noise become louder and louder and Frederic was now just five years old and wailing because his mother had told him that she would cut his fingers off if he didn’t stop moving. She was only cutting his nails.
The screaming became shriller and shriller until it resembled the wail of the bird of prey.
Frederic’s little mouth opened wide and out flew a falcon.
The bird flew straight for The Old Bitch’s eyes and throat, ripping and tearing and pecking as it went.
She didn’t make a sound, for once, as the blood oozed and her eyesight disappeared. Quiet and methodically, she grabbed a kitchen knife and plunged it into the body of the falcon, which twitched and screamed as they both died.

Jason Michel has been turned on, tripped up and stumbled over all around the world on a ten year self imposed exile. He currently lives in France and now wonders if that was such a good idea... He has had work and will have work published in remark, scarecrow, dogmatika, zygote in my coffee, triptych haiku, faux pas magazine and straight from the fridge...

Last update : 01-12-2007 17:45

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