Awaited Downfall

She sat there, tied against a pole, with the rope cutting into her wrinkled flesh. She knew that this dawn was going to bring her deliverance and she patiently waited for the new horizons this journey promised her, this journey from the cellar to the gallows. Smiling, she awaited her bright fate She had led a long and tragic life and beckoned her end with greater enthusiasm than the magistrate who had sworn to unleash her armageddon upon her.

As she was dragged from this cold, heartless collar out into the early morning, she reflected, not on what was past, but what could be. Maybe, maybe this new dawn would have blooming flowers all around and a shimmering lake, and birds whose sweet melodies would throng in the air, and an open endless sky to immerse oneself in. And oh, maybe she could now be a colourful bird with majestic wings, as she had always longed to be

"And here I give to you, this old hag, whose witchcraft has

claimed your children's life", says the magistrate while the

hangman lets go off the loose end of the rope She remembered it all now. She remembered her innocent self running around the house to escape tortures, endless abuse, by her drunkard of a father while her mother would stand by and shush her, as she looked on with tears filled eyes and blood red cheeks. She had endured pain these long years because she had been taught to allow the tide to take her under, to swallow sand when all she had to do was flap her wings for once and for all and glide forever. Sherecalled with almost a shudder how her husband would use all the pots and pans in the house to the fulfilment of the sole purpose of his life, setting this ugly calf right. The scars, her husband dearest had left her, ran too deep, and afflicted her soul with a fear and an inescapable paranoia, and so demented her very being, leaving her incapable to love again.

Though she did. She did fall in love. She fell in love with those innocent eyes and plucked her lips that would so form to call her 'mother'. Flooding in care memories of her pampering her children and loving them with whatever was left her broken soul. 'Never would this threshold cross over and harm', she remembered promising her kids on a particular afternoon. The same afternoon twenty or so years later, the very kids to whom she had dedicated her whole being, crossed over that very threshold was to hold back harm, and out they went never to return again or inquire about the old hag who had borne them, held them when the thunder was loud, sang to them on dark sleepless nights, and kissed them goodnight even after a long day of suffering. She did, though, spot them in the crowd now jeering and shouting slogans of appreciation for the newly appointed magistrate. Glad was she to see them before her final breath

The tightening of the noose sent her ugly face into a beautiful spell of a smile, while a thousand butterflies fluttered before her eyes, enchanting her. The noose had finally set her free.