A Serrated Life

Whenever I am angry, I believe in channeling my emotions into various mediums so that I can feel calm again. I remember writing this story when I was extremely angry and as punching a wall was not an option I decided to write the story 'A Serrated Life'. The calm I felt after ending the story was not fulfilling but at least I did not have the urge to punch the wall anymore, so in that sense it helped. 

A small lesson learnt, now shared.

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She had learned to survive the hard way.

Being shuffled in the system for 16 years had taught her to make it out on her own. She started out with a few basic fight moves that she remembered watching on TV. She could throw a solid punch that could knock out a guy senseless. As she grew her skills not only improved but they became deadlier.

She still remembered her first fight. She took on a man twice her size. She was coming out of a party when a man thought it would be funny to size her up. She grabbed her knife and sliced his throat. It wasn’t even a fight. From then on, word spread through the streets that a new fighter was threatening the status quo. She fought everyone; male, female, teens, junkies. Most of the fights she won, but the ones she did lose her attacker did not live long enough to tell the tale. She had made a name for herself, ‘Bloody Mary’ they called her, because that was all she left for the police, red bloodstains on the wall, no body.

This time seemed different. She found herself back against the wall in a dark alley overlooking the dimly lit streets, with four bulky men around her, blocking all escape. Just when she was about to make her move she heard one of her assailants say,

“Well, well, well, look what we have here. Are you going to run away scared, kitty cat?” this caused the other three men to start laughing.

“In your dreams”, she said in a cold voice that made them all shut up.

She quickly grabbed her serrated blade and stabbed the nearest man. Her lips curled up in a wicked sneer as she twisted the knife deeper into the man’s body. He gave a blood-curdling scream as he fell to his knees but she paid no mind, she gave the knife one last twist and let the man fall to his death.

The other three men stared at her, anger immediately replacing the shock on their faces. Two men circled her, each waiting for the other to attack. They made the first move; expecting them to attack she widened her arms in defense but surprisingly they held on to her arms. She could feel the bruises starting to form on her wrists but that was the least of her concerns. The last man, the one who had spoken to her, walked slowly towards her and stopped in front of her. He raised his hand and gently grazed her cheek with his rough knuckles before slapping her across her face.  The force of the slap would have been enough to send her flying halfway across the alley if the men were not holding onto her. Before she could feel the blood trickling down her lip, she felt a sharp blow to her stomach, followed by several hard punches. She tried to move away but it was no use, the men had her in a death grip. She watched as the man slowly walked and retrieved her blade from the dead man’s abdomen and plunge it into her side. But before he had a chance to twist the knife she used her head to give him a head-butt. She felt the grip on her hands loosen and she moved out of them with cat-like agility.

She felt the man come up behind her and she turned around and met his blow with a kick of her own. She followed it by a few jabs. His weight made it a little difficult for him to move and she took advantage of it. She grabbed an empty beer bottle and hit him over the head, allowing her a few moments to deal with her other assailants. The pain in her waist started to grow and she could feel her T-shirt grow damp with her blood. She pulled two spears from her boots and walked towards them. She could see the fear in their eyes and she smiled.  

“Don’t worry. It will all be over in a minute,” she whispered as she drove it into their hearts. She carefully pulled out the knife from her side and turned to face the last man.

“I won’t be that easy to kill, kitty cat.” Said a voice from behind her.

“Where would be the fun in that?”

Before she could turn around, he hit her on the shoulder with an old pipe. Pain surged through her body as she felt her shoulder dislocate. He got in a few punches but she just walked towards him. Once she got close to him she plunged the knife into the nape of his neck. He screamed and tried to get the knife out but it was too late, she had already twisted his neck. She felt his body go limp as she pulled out the blade. She spared the men a glance as she made her way to the dimly lit street. She held onto her shoulder and thought,

Done surviving, now to live...

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Read the below article by Sigmund Freud on Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming to get a Psychoanalytic view of the whole thing. If you ignore Freud's 'unfulfilled childhood fantasies' and 'unmet sexual desires' theories, the article does explain the idea of channeling emotions and thoughts quite well.