Joao Goncalves 4170 Bear Lakes Court, #305 West Palm Beach, Florida, 33409 561-729-6578 joaogoncalves99@yahoo.

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SOLACE By Joao Goncalves

Goncalves / Solace / 2

Chapter 1

My name is Silas Blackwood, and Im dead. It was sudden, gruesome, and it hurt so much. There was no way I could have expected it, but when your father is a drunken, abusive, sorry sack of shit Trevor Blackwood was, what happened was unavoidable. I was cashiering at the grocery store I worked at, Value Shopping, a place so dirty and ratinfested, youd wonder if the sewers had better living conditions. But hey, it paid. Crappy pay, but still, when youre fifteen and supporting a family, it paid. My manager, Mr. Webster, was being the asshole he usually was; yelling at employees, customers, and a corner he had smashed his foot against on his way to the restroom to drop a massive deuce that was probably betterlooking than he was. Some homeless guy ran inside wearing his birthday suit, holding his rod in one hand and a banana in the other claiming he was robbing the store while the only thing he got when he was escorted by the police out of the store was ten years in prison for attempted robbery and indecent exposure. So it was a pretty normal day, aside from the fact that I was about to commit murder. Well, not commit murder exactly, but exact revenge. I was tired of the way my father treated my mother Elizabeth and me, so I decided on a whim to end his life, so that Mom could enjoy hers. I hoped that after the deed was done, she wouldnt feel sadness or guilt, only contempt for this pitiful excuse for a husband and father.

Goncalves / Solace / 3 Before work that morning, on my way to our sedan so my mother could drive me to Value Shopping, I had snatched a strange knife out of the back of my closet that I had recently found on a walk. It was dual edged, shaped like a sickle, with saw-like grooves on the inside edge. It had a smooth wooden grip engraved with strange symbols that seemed to spell the word harvester, and was still very sharp. I honestly did not know why I had picked it up, or why I even saw it in the first place. When I approached the area where it was I didnt even notice it at first, but I looked at the ground when my head suddenly jerked in that direction and felt something tell me to dig where my eyes were locked on. After a couple handfuls of dirt, I felt cold metal graze my fingers, which surprised me. It was the hottest day in July, the knife was mere inches in the ground, and this knife felt cold as ice. It was strange, all right, but still I pulled it out of the ground and took it home to hide. The next day I decided to kill my father. I hid the knife in my backpack, and went to work. My father picked me up after my shift that day, which only meant one thing: My mother was in so much pain from dads beatings that she could barely walk. Dont worry, my mother always said, One day well leave him and hell never bother us again. That was always hard to believe when the person telling you that was covered in black and blue bruises. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I hated that man with all the fury on heaven and earth, and wanted nothing more than to rip out his throat- no, wait- slowly cut off his balls with that knife and nail them to his forehead. When I saw him pull up to the front entrance, (illegally, of course) I turned in my green vest and walked through the sliding doors outside. The air was dirty and smelled of waste, and there were the sounds of car horns and random curses on the wind. It wasnt peaceful now, but it was going

Goncalves / Solace / 4 to get worse later, when the floors were stained with blood, and the only sounds to be heard in about an hour were the screams of my mother and the sounds of my fathers repetitive punching and slapping and kicking. I met him on the driver side of the car. Get the fuck in the car. He said. Go to hell, dipshit. I responded, hoping I would make that statement true soon. And that was when he punched me. It was like being hit by a wall. He was six feet eight inches, one whole foot taller than I was. He was also muscular, and naturally merciless, so when I fell to the ground, all blurry- eyed and bleeding, he picked me right back up again, threw me and my pack inside the backseat of the car, and re-entered the drivers seat, all while Mr. Webster was watching and laughing. My dad turned on the ignition, and started driving. I was furious, obviously, but I wanted to save my anger for my later. I sat up as we drove past the usual sights. The county jail, the courthouse, the gas station, and the power plant. Then there was the smell of a thousand cows, and I knew we were passing by the farmlands. We were nearly there. About fifteen minutes later we finally screeched to a halt in front of our garage. I stepped out of the car and watched my father unlock the front door and go inside, to the living room, leaving the door open. We lived in a one-story family home, if thats what youd want to call it. It was a sickly greenish color, with paint chips flecked up and down the sides. There was an area in the front yard which was supposed to be a garden, and it was, but for my fathers hemp, and not my mothers tulips. There were rust-covered shutters meant for hurricanes, but what they were really for was so that no one could see what he did to her. He didnt have to worry about screams; we were in the middle of nowhere.

Goncalves / Solace / 5 However, despite all of its flaws, it was still my home. Broken and hurt, yet still home. It was where I was brought after I was born, where I left for my first day of school, and where I dropped out to support my mother when my father stopped trying to find work. It was where I had my first kiss, with a girl whose name I can no longer remember. It was where I had run away from, then brought back to and beaten in. It was where I witnessed my father laying hands on my mother for the first time, and where he first laid hands on me. It was where I lived, and it would be where I died. I knew what I had to do. I already had the knife in my hand. Fifteen years of abuse would at last end. My mother would be happy, and I would run. I would be hunted by police, forced to live as a fugitive, but at least Mom would be happy. Everything would be just the way it should. I raised the knife and walked slowly towards the door. You can do this, I told myself, just drag the knife across his throat, and run. It didnt happen that way. I was halfway to the door when the beatings started, and anyone with ears could hear Mom scream. They were terrible things, Mothers screams, a mixture of fear and hatred and sadness that any human being would hurry to escape from. I started running to the door, unlocking all the inhuman fury I had stored inside me for so long. Tonight my father would die. I entered the living room, and saw what was happening. My father was furiously kicking my mother, who was on the ground, crying and bleeding from various places. From the way he was kicking, he definitely broke a few ribs. It was all the same thing, yet there was one key difference to this onslaught of abuse. My father had a gun in his hand.

Goncalves / Solace / 6 I ran at him, but it was like one of those nightmares when youre running, running as fast as you can, but time slows down and you just cant move fast enough. And that was what happened. Time slowed down, and I couldnt move fast enough. My mother was shot three times: twice in the stomach, and once in the head, right between her eyes. She stopped crying, she stopped screaming, but she didnt stop bleeding. And I didnt stop running. Time sped back up, and I tackled my mothers murderer, bringing us both tumbling to the wooden floor, which was now soaked with dark red blood. I found myself kneeling on top of him, and I completely forgot about my knife, which felt like it was tingling in my hand, as if it thirsted for blood. I assaulted him with a mass of blows right to his face, breaking his nose with a loud snap and removing a number of his teeth. I smashed my knee into his chest, breaking a few ribs of my own. I finally remembered my knife, which was vibrating so hard in my hand; it felt like I was gripping a massage chair. I turned it on my mothers killer. I slashed at him once, twice, three times in his abdomen, feeling the hot blood soak through my fingers and leaving bright red gashes in his side. I was about to drag it across his throat and run, when I heard a loud bang. It didnt hurt at first, but when I looked down and saw my white t-shirt quickly reddening from the hole in my chest, the most pain I had ever felt, or ever will feel, flooded my body. I fell to my side clutching my new wound with my left hand, and still holding my knife in my right, which had started to cease vibrating. It was a futile attempt to gasp for air, as I was choking on my own blood. I still attempted to end was I had started, though. I crawled towards my father, stabbing the knife into the floor to drag myself along.

Goncalves / Solace / 7 He wouldnt let me have the satisfaction. I watched as my father, my mothers killer, the pain and suffering that had occupied my life since I was born, turn; look me in the eyes, and say, Ill see you in hell, dipshit. Then put the gun to his chin, and fire. Blood, brain matter and skull fragments flew off of Trevor Blackwoods neck, or what was left of it, and splattered against the walls, the couches, everything. I turned on my back, covered in dark red liquids and pink solids, as I felt my own life slip away. I saw my mother, motionless, her eyes and mouth open as well as the hole in her forehead. She stared at me with those beautiful brown eyes she had and I stared back at her, until my vision started to fade to black. My body went numb. The knife stopped vibrating. I stopped breathing. I was scared. Then I started to fall.