The seconds drag by sluggishly, allowing Joseph’s repulsion to melt into concern and his cold-sweated palms to find their feeling again. His mind races to hatch some kind of plan before his brute of a father seizes the next move, but he struggles to scheme around a stalemate. It was the first time he had fully gathered the power of his father’s evil. He stomachs the surge of new emotion, sees an old dust sheet and begins there, pulling it from a forgotten lamp and draping it over his mutilated mother’s modesty. He thinks to himself that at least it’s something, a start.
Up close she’s not as terrifying as at first sight. Her skin is red raw, and her unskilled stitches have healed badly, some weeping an ugly mess, but her face is still familiar and in her pain and unconsciousness, holds something serene. Despite his lack of true memories, Joseph had spent hours creating his own fantasies when looking through his brother’s secret scrapbook and in every scenario his mother was a beautiful presence, elegant and calm. He had thought this a fitting personality for a dancer.
Violetta’s eyelids waver and open. She feels the rough sheet over her, sees Joseph smile timidly down at her with his bloodied and chewed lip, and for the first time since her pitiless sentence was passed, she dares to chance. She motions with her jaw toward the foot of the bed, where upon a dusty fishing stool lie the utensils for her surgery. Joseph is afraid to touch them but he knows what he must do. He picks the smallest, sharpest one and takes it to the ties around his mother’s wrists and ankles, wincing, as it’s necessary to draw a little blood. He is encouraged when she shows no reaction, having been hardened to a higher level of agony than this.
William finds himself on the bathroom floor. He blearily surveys the contents of a first aid kit scattered about him, and thelozenges of glass stuck to his self-inflicted wounds. His mind is chaotic with emptiness, thudding and droning with thirst and confusion. He blindly feels for a bottle – it doesn’t take him long to find one – and puts it to his lips, finding refreshment in the sting of the proof. He gathers himself heavily and lurches out, drawn to the noise and light escaping the living room.Sam senses the doorway darken and immediately shrinks, hoping he might not be noticed. He glues his eyes to the TV, the hairs on the back of his neck jolting. He is well trained to feel wary when his father lingers like this.
diegesiscycle 