I sat on my bed in the dark, with an office-sized paper shredder in my arms and an empty gallon milk jug. I flattened the jug as best I could, and attempted to feed it into the shredder. It occurred to me just then that it wasn't just a lengthwise shredder. It was a cross-cut shredder, and had more work to do on the plastic than I'd initially realized. But I was a little relieved, because it mean my shredded documents would be more secure. And my milk bottles, too, apparently.
It took several attempts, during which the feed mechanism jammed and I repeatedly had to do the "reverse feed direction, pull, then switch to forward feed and push" move. Finally the bottle was completely shredded to my satisfaction in the shredder's attached waste bin.
Then I noticed that there were more shreds, on my bedroom floor. Shreds of white paper, it appeared. I got up to investigated and followed this shredded "paper trail" all the way to my bathroom, still virtually in the dark. Along the way I realized that they were shreds of soft tissue paper, with the telltale edges that always mean a cat has had jolly fun shredding your toilet paper roll while you're gone. As I entered the bathroom to verify, I made a mental note to find the cat and lecture or scold him.
But the white paper shreds were no longer under my feet; I couldn't see or feel them anymore. Instead, somewhere near a bathmat, I stepped into a pool of warm liquid. In the dim light, I could see that dark pools had formed in various places on the floor. I heard the sound of dripping. A leak of some kind? But the liquid was too dark to be water. I turned on the light.
I was standing in a pool of blood. It was all around me, pooling, dripping consistently and rhythmically from various cracks in the cieling. I remembered that my mother's bedroom was upstairs, directly above me. I raced upstairs.
I found her sitting up in bed, covered in bloody bed linens and nightclothes. A man was asleep beside her. "It's my brother!" she weeped quietly. I saw the open gashes, bruises, and bite marks on her. "He was raping me. Hurting me! Shhh, don't wake him up. He'll get you."
It was daylight now. The man rose from the bed, yawned, stretched, and smiled at me. At that point, my mother faded from the scene. Perhaps she went unconscious, died, or just disappeared under the now-bloodless blankets into another dimension. At any rate, she was no longer in the room, and I was alone with my uncle.
I knew that he'd attempt to hurt me if I panicked or tried to find a phone to call the police. I had to get out of there and find help somewhere else without raising any suspicion in him that I knew about his evil deeds.
We went about a usual sort of morning routine, making breakfast and conversation. I distracted him with what turned out, surprisingly, to be an intelligent and mutually engaging conversation about the advantages of direct marketing. I was having a good morning and almost forgot how afraid I was. But I remembered, and drew the conversation to an end as I looked for my combat boots. As I nonchalantly put them on, my uncle seemed to realize that I was about to go out to seek help. He moved ominously toward me while I was pulling on the second boot.
Then I woke up.( the factsCollapse )
katyism