I Wasn't Real
by Susie Hicks

I stared blankly into the mirror, a tear then fell on my face. How did I get here? Exactly what is this place? I had become a mere shadow. I could see, but didn’t recognize myself. I felt as though I’d been asleep for years, simply set back on a shelf somewhere. Why did I feel such a hollow place? I just don’t understand. I feel as though I am out in space, as if I am in a foreign land.

Why can’t I see out a window? Not even a hole in this door? I am suffocating here!

Suddenly, I felt as if a ton of bricks had knocked the wind out of me. Knocked me onto the floor. Was I dreaming? Would I wake up at anytime now? Or, was this my certain reality; something I refused as my own?

It all started to come to me. I know why I have stitches on my face, why there are bruises on me. I now remember exactly what has happened here. Even though I am totally terrified, I do know this place.

I guess after four years of beatings, of being treated sub-human, constantly yelled at, told how sorry a person I am, I suddenly snapped inside. I would no longer accept his damn beatings and verbal abuse. It stopped today! 

I seem to remember a hard bash. Oh my God, I have killed him. I had started and I couldn’t stop myself. I literally bashed upon his head and I hit him until the brains started to ooze out. Oh my God, what have I done?

Why did I stay there so long? Why did I allow such abuse upon myself? I don’t know. Maybe because I didn’t have real close family that would help me. Maybe because I didn’t have close friends to help; he would have never allowed that.

Maybe because I had tried to leave him at least three times before, but to try was no use. Maybe my total fear of him, of actually believing I am worthless is true. My fear stunned me. I became afraid to even try again. For he nearly beat me to death the last time I tried. He said what I told the cops was a total lie and now he looked bad.

The other time I tried to leave him, he just laughed, said, “You just try it bitch.” He beat me with his belt, the buckle hitting my eye, and I was nearly blind after that one. I still can’t see very well in that eye.

I guess I just totally lost the energy the day my baby, inside of me, was gone for good. For his amusement, to show me his manliness, he whipped me for hours. He tied me to the bed for a whole day. I had to urinate in the bed, he would not let me up. And then, because I had to urinate, he beat me even more, laughing the entire time.

He spat on me, slapped me, whipped me with his belt, a hangar, a rope and a paddle. Whatever he could get hold of. He kicked me and punched me, until I literally threw up, and then he hit me more because I got sick.

And as I lay there, I started to bleed, and he never even cared. He said that he hoped I died. Well, I didn’t die, but our baby did. I was four months pregnant and I miscarried.

“Why did you marry me, if this is all that I am good to you for?” I had asked him. “What did I do to deserve this from you, my own husband? You told me that you loved me!” I had cried.

But he only laughed at me and told me I should have never been born. I was just a worthless piece of crap that was taking up space on this earth. I was using up the oxygen that REAL people could be breathing!

Four years I had taken his beatings, the loss of my baby, humiliation, and his torture. Four years I had no where else to go and no one to help me, or even care, where that bruise came from, or where that cut came from.

I remembered the police there many times over and they did nothing. He told them I was just a wild, crazy, jealous wife. Totally hysterical for no reason. They actually offered to take “me” to jail once, just for a night, so I could think about “my damn actions”! Can you believe it?

I begged, cried, filled out several reports, until I became afraid to, because no one ever helped me. Still he stayed out free, allowed to come back into our home, just to beat me more.

I guess I just lost my mind finally, said it now had to all end. I don’t know. Instead of trying a whole lot harder to leave him way before this, I just snapped instead.

I stayed there until sometime this morning, when he made me lay down so he could urinate on me. He had come in drunk and thought it would be fun to drag me out of bed I guess. Thought it would be fun to humiliate me once again. 

I lost all control, no longer myself. I knew this would be the last time. He would not hurt me anymore, not this morning, not ever again. He would no longer leave bruises on my face, or my body. Heaven was not where he was headed. He was headed straight to hell!

I struck him with his own ball bat, knocking him to the floor, but I could see instantly one hit just wasn’t enough. I knew after he got up, with death in his eyes, if it wasn’t to be him, it was going to be me for sure. If not right then, someday very soon. So, I struck him again, and again, and again, totally void of emotion. Totally unaware after the first few hits, of what I was even doing. I must have hit him 100 times, in the head and body. I saw his brains start to fall out. I heard bones crack.

I guess someone called the police. To bad they could never call whenever he was practically killing me all of those times! When I bled so much! When I lost my baby!

Now I remember someone saying, “Oh, my God, no woman, hell, no human, could do this, be so cold, so gruesome.” He got sick, for it happened only minutes before. That is the last I remember until now.

You see, it all came to an ending. I killed my own husband last night. Where my strength came from, I do not know. But somewhere, from out of fear I guess, from out of depression, pain, desperation, whatever, the strength to free myself from this constant hell came!

I was told for years, “You are worthless, a bitch, a slut, NOT REAL,” until I no longer even considered myself a human. For years, I was beaten, treated like street trash, worse than animals are treated. Animals are treated better than he treated me. I just could not take anymore.

Now they are telling me that I am to blame. I am nothing but a cold, calculating murderer. I had no reason to kill, much less kill so gruesomely. Nothing he had done to me could have been reason enough to do this.

Well, I thought I did have a reason to kill; to save my own life. It was self-defense. I had to kill for my unborn child, my dignity, my sanity, my life! I had no reason to kill? Well, I thought I had a reason to kill; and kill I did. How could I be a murderer? Well, I do not consider myself a murderer. I consider myself a survivor. Murderer? No! How could I be a murderer when I wasn’t real?

The End

***Author’s Note***
This is a Prose. It is not biographical for me, but some of the things in this story did happen to a friend of mine. She is better, this happened years ago. No one really died. This story was mainly written to prove a point on what could quickly become reality, whenever abuse is allowed to go on and on!