Phoenix

The Phoenix

My father sat me down a long time ago and told me "Alice, girls are flowers. They are delicate and their only hope to survive is to fit in. You can not stand against men you are only going to get hurt." I believed him and did as I was told, I was a good little girl. I dressed in the clothes he provided, I cleaned, and I cooked, and I showed all men the respect they deserved. 

As the years went by his demands increased, he wanted me to do what needed to be done as my mother stayed in bed carrying yet another one of his children. She was also a good girl, she tried to please him, but she was unable to ever give him a son, or even a child who survived long enough to be born. From her I learned exactly how delicate girls are, she was always pale and tired, her belly swollen with child more often than it was not. These children never survived and my father blamed her delicacy for it. He believed that her inability to carry a healthy child was a disobedience which he punished. Every child she lost resulted in pain until father could once again see her belly swell with another one of his parasites. 

I learned then that to protect myself I had to shut down, I could no longer feel for I did not have time to be anything other than the one who did womanly tasks as my mother stayed in bed too weak to do anything other than sometimes rise to use the chamber pot. 

Then one day it all changed, father came home and yelled the same thing he always did. "Alice, where is my supper?"  I told him that I was just finishing it and he swore at me, stepping forward with a match which he lit and brought up to light his pipe before shaking it out. For once he did not bring the hot ember to my skin, instead choosing to slam a callused palm into my shoulder. The smell of alcohol on his breath was more heavy than it had been the day before, and his hand shook as he brought the pipe to his lips probably thinking of hitting me again. He sat on his chair and pulled out the newspaper as I retreat to the kitchen, both to finish cooking his supper and to avoid his wrath. I shake a small amount of white powder into the beer he always had with his supper, the crushed sleeping pill mixing with the foam and becoming imperceptible. If he just slept then I could have some rest, I could clean the house without having to dodge his blows if he took offence to how I polished the silverware.

He grunted as I placed the meal in front of him, putting his pipe to the side for a moment as he devoured the small portion like an animal and drank his beer as if his life depended on him finishing it in mere seconds. He put the pipe back into his mouth and opened the newspaper once more. I retreated once more to the kitchen with the used dishes, taking out the small stale roll that would serve as my own supper and nibbled on the end knowing that it had to last for a few more days. It was better to feed my father the best food, if not his anger would be even worse. I begin to work on the dishes as I heard my father start snoring, good the pills worked and I will be able to have some measure of peace tonight.

I finish with the cutlery before noticing that there is the smell of smoke in the air, the chimney must be blocked again, it is far too dirty but my father is unwilling to get it cleaned, after all that would take away some of his beer money. I put away the final fork before going out to begin to clean the foyer, my father never takes off his boots and tracks dirt across the house. I stop as I exit the room and a fierce heat engulfs me, there is a rather large fire next to my father's still body, he must not have put down his pipe before falling asleep and the newspaper had served as an excellent piece of tinder. The alcohol that he always spills on himself did not help either, as his clothes were covered in thick flames. 

I run upstairs to my mother's room hoping to be able to get her out. "Mother, we have to get out of here.There is no time to explain." I tell her, she is too weak and tired to be able to think clearly, she has not been able to think fast on the best of days and today is no exception as she simply obeys without question. I help her get out of her bed, her belly swollen with another unwanted child who was draining her energy like they all do. We reach the  stairs before she begins coughing, her fragile lungs overwhelmed by the heat and the smoke. We get partway down the stairs before my mother's leg gives out, her bones are so very brittle from the child within. I try to steady her, but she falls down the steep steps barely having the breath to scream. I scramble down to her and try to help her up, but she is not responding to my actions. I grab her arm and begin to pull her down the hallway to the door as flames lick against my skin. I finally reach the door after what seems like an eternity of pain and pulling, and I try to lift my mother's body out onto the street. I pull for a long moment before realizing that I can not manage to get her over the doorstep because her dress is caught under a fallen piece of timber and all I can do is rip at her dress. After a moment of frantic scrambling the worn fabric of her nightgown tears and I can pull her out onto the street. I kneel down next to my mother and realize that all my work was for nothing, she was already dead and it was my fault for trying to escape my father's wrath for a night. 

A man stops next to me and I notice that there are other men trying to put out the blazing inferno that was the only home that I ever knew. The home that seemed to me to be better than the fires of hell that my father told me I would experience if I did not do as he told me had shown its true nature as another part of hell, a hell with only one demon, one victim, and the child born from it. The man looks down at my mother and places his hand on her in an attempt to find some sign of life. He sighs as he finds none and looks at me. "I am sorry child, but she is with god now. As is the babe she was carrying." He says as he touches her eyes to close them. "But she is in a better place, one where she can be with her husband." He continues thinking I already knew that my father had also died. 

I look up at him my eyes filled with tears from the smoke. "My father is dead?" I ask him and he confirms it, speaking gently as if it might upset me, but all I can think about is the fact that I am free of him. 

It is then that I realize that girls are not delicate flowers, or if they are I am not a girl. I am a phoenix, I went through that fire and I died. I am not my father's daughter for he is dead and with him his child. I am my mother's daughter, I died with her and have been reborn through fire. The man looks at me as I begin to laugh. "He is dead." I shout triumphantly at the sky. "The red queen has been reborn through fire, and the Executioner is dead." I look at the body that used to contain my mother and smile. "And she is free, she is not with my father. He is with the parasites he put within her and they are killing them like they did her." I notice the burns along much of my skin and smile wider even though it pains me to open my mouth. "Look at the fire that wanted to escape." I say before turning to the man. "I am clean, the house is clean, and my mother is clean." 

The man says nothing, or if he did the sound of my own mind drowned him out. I smile as widely as I can before sitting down to watch the fire that had killed me, and that had given birth to me once more.