The snow lay round about deep and thick and Ellis stood at the bedroom window watching the soft flakes falling, so perfect, so pure, so white. In the background the radio was playing a favourite song of hers about love, loss and betrayal. The vocalist’s voice harsh against the plaintive notes of his melancholy mandolin. The lyrics rattled in her head, so familiar she could have penned them herself.
And once again, she saw herself hurtling back in time and finding herself dancing with the devil on her own private stairway to hell. The husband, who had so fooled her when she first met him, with beguiling green eyes masking the savagery in his soul. Charm the camouflage hiding the demon that dwelt within him, content to remain hidden until she was shackled to him ‘for better, for worse’…
Only, no one told her there was no better…
She had heard there was a name for it. Post-traumatic stress...The flashbacks and vivid replay of events in full widescreen Technicolor, like a DVD inserted into your brain jammed on replay with no eject button...
They were insidious invaders those memories, cunning and crafty, hiding in the dark recesses of your mind and ready to pounce when they caught you unawares. Then once they had you in their gleeful grip, drag you kicking and screaming down into the depths of deep despair. Down the jagged staircase into the hell of your own private screening room, where the walls were padded and no one heard you scream.
It might be a sight, a sound, a word, anything...but once the association had been made there you were, spiralling into the unrelenting loop of the synaptic storm unleashed in your mind. Trapped, until you were left battered, bruised and bleeding and shaken to the core of your very being.
A captive prisoner watching it all unfold with your body frozen in fear. Time after time it grimly ran its course and reluctant observer, eyes fixed on the private screening of your own personal horror movie, forced to experience it all...again.
With her psyche screaming in pain, Ellis felt her soul dis-associate as the furies rushed in and excoriated the flesh from her body. Carrion sacrificed on the rocks of life awaiting the purification of a sky burial once the raptors came and carried the putrefying flesh away. Release.
When it was over the tears came and like blessed rain washed all the filth and dirt away.
I passed you on a stairway
Somewhere back in time,
I just had to make you mine!
You tried to take me your way
Up where the skies are blue,
I had other plans for you…
You wanted to go towards the light,
I dragged you down into the night
Through depths of dark despair.
Welcome home to the devil’s lair.
I pushed and you fell
Down the stairway to hell…
© Eily Nash 2012