The Picket Fence

I was staring down over the scene, the green grassy troves of hills below me as the house sat in its sparkling glory. Gray shingles, lined with black, white gutters and white sheets running horizontally from left to right. My wings swooped over the cold night air as I spun then slowly descended to a perch on the tree, nary a sound coming from my large form. There, my eyes peered into the yellow light to see them. To see her.

We were screaming something at each other, something the other about her. And by 'her' I mean her mother - my grandmother - and I told her it was enough. How she'd finally managed to procure this picket fence house in the neighborhood she dreamt of? I don't know, but I knew that I was up to here with her.

Our voices escalated, the tension drawing tight till tears were spilling down my face as she looked at me, scoffing. Something she said came off her tongue wrong, her lips... forming some accusatory note at me for being 'too much' again or something the other and I told her I finally had enough.

I told her that she wouldn't be bringing that 'cursed bitch' of her mother around my children or family and that I'd do anything to make sure that didn't happen. I tried to remind her of the woman that strangled her, the one that tormented us and suddenly it felt like the semi was tumbling right at us as the house shook with my final scream of frustration. I shrieked so hard and so loud, my eyes were squeezed shut and I had enough.

All I remember was one word. Enough. And then I was opening my eyes to the knife I sank into her chest, the ones that made her sputter and gasp as I told her for the final time that I was 'sorry' and despite how much I 'loved her,' my own mother, that I wasn't going to put my children anywhere near her other daughter and that psycho bitch I didn't want to call my grandmother.

I was removing myself from her, stepping back around the kitchen island, my hand brushing the sharp corner of the laminate countertop before flicking over to the stove that was embedded into it, far different from the ranges I was used to looking at. Something fancy. Something- nice. No, not anymore.

I finally did it.

I finally snapped.

Horror hit me as I howled something horrible, my scream an echo of pain that the one person I'd tried to redeem out of this shitstain of a family was dead and it was all my fault. I was racked with guilt, my shoulders shaking as I watched myself from both outside and inside. The cold steely gaze of the owl my own glazed eyes cast over the woman that was me but hardly looked like me.

I knew my husband was safe. My son... safe, but the dream was forcing me to believe that they had been coerced against their will, trapped and taken from me like I was some sort of psychopath.

It was them!

They made me do it!

"It's all your fault!"

The words echoed throw my lips, as my feathered self watched the person that was no longer me screamed in frustration. She was slamming her hands on the counter, jarring me back into her body.

"You fucking forced me! You wouldn't listen! I told you no more! I told you I wouldn't live with that sick son-of-a-bitch in my life anymore! I'm fucking done! Look at you! LOOK AT YOU!"

And I was weeping.

Oh, I was weeping so terribly distraught. I loved her so much but she forced my hand.

And the cries racked me so hard that I jerked awake, breathing heavily and sharply so much so that my chest hurt. I was starting to cry in reality, the dream so vivid and sharp and shook my husband awake, crying at him that I wanted him to hold me because I was wanting to be grounded.

I wasn't living that life anymore.

I wasn't living the silver spoon.

Sure, we're barely above poor, but there was no white house.

No picket fence.

No mother.

No, she and I walk different lives. Separate paths.

I'd never hurt her. Not like that.

God.

What kind of sick fuck kills their own parent?