SHE WAS CRAZY

Written by Shween Tanaz Salih

She was crazy. Not in the common sense of that word, not in a way that you usually call wearing mismatched clothes, crazy. No, she really was crazy.

She pushed him down, the man falling back down in a puddle of mud, splashing it everywhere and when a streak landed on her face, she smiled a wide smile, with her white teeth showing.

She walked closer to him and stepped her heel on his hand and dug it into him, slowly twisting the pointed heel as she casually looked up at the sky, seeing the stars sparkle brightly in the dark sky and she felt like they were applauding her as she revelled in his screams.

She glared back at the man and grabbed him by the collar and started landing punches on his face. Not the measly kind the females are identified to throw, no, these were blood drawing ugly scarring punches filled to the brim with hate and anger. His eyes were wide open in fear, and she had instantly decided she had liked it. She liked how the tables have turned. How the diamond ring he bought her was now cutting into his flesh.

She started screaming loud, in time with her fist colliding with his face. His nose instantly breaking and blood running down everywhere. It was oddly comforting to her uncontrolled spite at that moment. But it was not even close to satisfying the beast inside her that he created. She wanted to pay him back. After all, women were supposed to give back everything they had received. Why wasn’t the pain included? Who says so the pain cannot be paid back too? She was just being kind by giving him back everything he gave her in tenfold.

She had not even noticed when the rain had started pouring again as she let her hurt go. It was a sight to see.

A woman in a white dress, kneeled in the middle of a muddy puddle near the edge of a cliff, staining her once pure dress in an artwork of blood and filth, her fists coming down on an unconscious man in slow-motion as she screamed, with her hair flying everywhere. The rain masking her tears that kept pouring as felt her pain reach an unbearable height.

She stopped suddenly. She got up and he cracked open his eyes a little, slowly regaining his consciousness. But in a blink of an eye, she had her hand tightly wrapped around his neck. And the maliciousness in her black eyes glinted brightly like the stars above her and he feared her.

He, who never let a woman talk down on him, felt himself piss his pants in front of her right then. But lucky for him, she was putting an end to everything.

As she dragged him to the edge of the cliff by his neck, he knew he would not need to find out how he could live with what just happened. She looked at him intently, not uttering a single word the entire night as she let her pain speak for her.

He opened his mouth and struggled a lot as everything was swollen and split open. But he finally said the words he wanted to say, his voice hoarse and gravelly.

Once the words reached her ears, she was glad it was not an apology, for what good were some five letters compared to her pain? The pain he caused, the pain the world caused.

“You’re crazy” sounded a lot better in her opinion, it was a compliment to her because it gave her the freedom to do whatever she wanted. She could do anything now; she was crazy. She could wear revealing clothes, clad herself in diamonds and run her world herself without caring about what everyone thought. She was crazy.

She did not want to look at the disgusting excuse of a man one more second and so, she pushed him off the cliff and watched him fall fast with his limbs flailing and she just knew he was falling right into the pits of fire. She felt an immense burden lift off her back, it was liberating.

The rain washing off her bloody hands and the stars blinking brightly, witnessing everything that happened that night.

She started laughing. A deep laugh that came all the way from the bottom of her belly.

Because it was ironic really, how she was the one about to jump off the cliff at the beginning of this glorious night, she had wanted to take her own life to end the pain when he found her standing at the edge of a cliff in a white dress, already looking like a ghost.

Well, in a way, she was. At least that was how she felt, like the ghost of the person she once was.

But when he showed up, she no longer wanted to punish herself for what he was responsible for. She suddenly wanted to make him pay. Because just why should she be the one to end herself for what he did?

She was done taking everything upon herself for ‘the man’. She was done being punished for being born a woman. She was done being for a man. She felt the heavens smile down upon her and her darkness suddenly comforting. With him gone, burning in the flames of hell by her own hands, she felt reborn. She was a widow now.

She was Algea.

The goddess of pain.