The Woman Across The Street

Carefully sliding past the hallway door as David led the way with Olivia tugged behind his back, he unlocked the front door and what revealed to be in the dense darkness was the silhouette of a woman with a knife clutched in her fist and in the light of the thunder, we caught a glimpse of the woman's face and it was she!

My name is Jane and I am thirty four years old and I live on the 84th street, New York. My husband and I are not divorced but we live separately with him being with my daughter Olivia. David comes to visit me every Sunday and like in out young days after dinner we watch a hitchcokian suspense. The week before it was Vertigo but today I think we will watch Rear Window. After seven, there was a knock on the door and I opened it to welcome David and Olivia. Today I have cooked a nice Bolognese with thyme and pepper serving it with hot and juicy meat loaves. The dinner was perfect with Olivia telling me about her new school and her friends. As usual after dinner I switched on the TV and started the movie when Jimmy witness a murder in a home in front of his. But before we could sit down, there was a frenzied scream across the street and what we saw shocked our eyes. The family was stabbed with a knife and the husband was screaming for help with a hilt dipped in his chest. We immediately dialled the cops and explained the situation. They told us to keep our doors locked and wait for the cops as they would reach us within 10 minutes.

10 minutes had passed but still there was nothing but then we heard a knock on the door and a feeling of relief washed over me in an awesome way. We opened the door and what revealed in the flash of thunder was the woman across the street and before we could react she stabbed my husband and daughter in front of me and then everything goes black...

I wake up in what seems to be a hospital and find myself strapped to the bed. I scream for help and then a doctor approaches. He is tall, heavily built and has a sharp cut chin which makes him look handsome but... Not now. "I see you are awake and you are probably wondering what is happening to you. I hate myself to be the one to explain to you that your child and husband are dead and you killed them. What we could understand from your behavior is that your mind could not bear with the pain of losing them specially your daughter and that is why it has made you believe that someone else killed them and not you. You are suffering from a severe case of post-traumatic disorder......." As the doctor was explaining about my illness, it all came back to me. The moment when I picked up the knife for killing my husband for having an affair and by mistake the edge of the knife slit the throat of my daughter and how with the rage I later killed my husband. The doctor was right, the fact of losing my daughter had traumatized me to an extent that I was imagining realities that weren't there. "I ask you did you kill them?", Asked the doctor. From here there are only two ways that I can take. Either I can admit the crime and be released from this mental institution or I can be here. If I leave, I have nowhere to go to and though I am cured, people will label me crazy but if I stay there is a chance for me to attain salvation by suffering the punishment for my crime. "Did you or did you not kill them?" "I didn't kill them, it was she who did it, the woman across the street....."