Flash Fiction

    "Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before- it takes something from him." (Louis L'Amour)

     I sit here in my white pillowed room, replaying this same quote over and over again. Since my last conviction nothing has been the same, the voices told me to kill my husband. The rage inside me was building, they would not shut-up! I couldn't take it, I wanted the voices to stop.
     Everything was fine until that day I found my husband cheating on me. I had lost all trust and I couldn't stand the thought of him going off with some other woman while I sat here and took care of the kids and took care of the chores. He'd come home late at night, every night. What, was I not good enough for him? Being married to someone who actually cared for him? The rage was growing, my temper and my patience was shortening. The day I confronted him was the last day of my sanity. I yelled and he yelled, saying I was suffocating him. That day was the worst day of my life, I got so angry, so enraged. That was when I started hearing the voices. They would tell me that he had never loved me, he had only married me so he could have a child.
     My rage still growing, to the point where there were times I couldn't remember what I had done five minutes ago. As the days went on, some where my husband never came home, my children began to become afraid of me. There is no worse feeling then when your own children are terrified to ask you a question because they can actually feel and see the rage that is building. My rage was taking over me, the voices telling me that my husband would never come back. That my children would leave to. My children would ask about him, when he was gone for more then one day. The voices would tell me to tell them the truth, but the little sanity that I had left told me to lie to them, to save them from the raw and cruel truth of humanity.
     The last day he came home, he was drunk and began to insult me in every way possible. All I could hear were the voices saying "Kill, kill him. Your pain will end when he is dead." My children, our children, had been woken up by his his loud profanity. All I remember is seeing their innocently, tired, freshly woken up faces before I had blacked-out. I remember hearing the screams of my children, the rage had finally swallowed me. I couldn't take the voices anymore, they were yelling at me to kill him! I just wanted them to stop, so I gave in. I remember feeling the satisfaction, then they were gone. I had done it, the voices were finally gone. As the rage subsided, I sat there in a bloodied mess, I remember laughing and feeling joy. Until I looked up and saw my children crying and screaming. I remember them flinching as I had tried to comfort them. I remember the feeling of guilt, horror and disgust as I realized what it was that I had done.
     The sirens seemed so loud as the rest of the world drowned out. I had blacked out yet again, before this point I remember feeling my face hitting the floor hard, and feeling the cold vice grip of the metallic hand-cuffs. Then I was here, in my white pillowed room. No straight jacket necessary when i'm on my own. Now I sit here, replaying the scene over again trying to grasp the memories that I had lost. I replay the quote over and over again, because its true. I sit here as a vegetable, with nothing left but silence and unsettled rage.

     The significance of my flash fiction relating to my topic, Rage, is very much like the quote. Rage can destroy you, it can consume you and it can turn you into an uncontrolled monster. Rage isn't always a good thing, it can be good if you feel strongly enough about let's say animal cruelty. Having rage can push you and inspire you to stop it, to get it noticed and have something done about it. Rage isn't necessarily positive but it isn't necessarily negative either. It really all depends on the situation. Like in my flash fiction, the wife grew tired and angry. Her anger became overpowering, until she finally snapped and released it because she couldn't contain it anymore. Rage is a dangerous thing, as presented in the situation in my flash fiction.