She awoke to blurred vision pinstriped with a migraine and cast-iron bars. Sarah sat up in her lumpy cot and looked through the prison bars, seeing a world of apple trees and green praries looking back at her, laughing at her, mocking her. She blanched as if they would retreat and rolled over in her cot. Her unfocused eyes tried to concentrate on the cracks in the wall but she only felt nauseus as though motion sickness rocked the prison she was buried within. She rolled over again and tossed her weak, sore legs over the edge of her cot, standing wearily and looking for the door to her prison. There wasn't one. She turned in rapid circles, confused, but only felt sicker and tumbled to her knees on the cold, cobblestone floor, her head swimming ferociously in an attack against her once sane mentality.
"Hey, whore," a gruff voice from outside her window chuckled, his breath quickly swimming across the clean air and to her nose. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of whiskey and walked over to her barred window to see a short, stout figure staring up at her through the skinny bars.
"Yeah, I'm talking to you." He laughed again accompanied by soft giggling surrounding him. She changed her position to get a better view and saw two other drunkards standing around him.
"Go away, you drunken fool," she pleaded with disinterest as she turned away from the window and strolled back toward her cot.
"Yes, your whoreness." The voice laughed harder and hiccuped. The giggles slowly faded away along with the probing whiskey fragrance. The intimidating silence returned.
She lay down on the cot and shook her head as tears erupted from the red flesh at the inner corners of her eyes.
"Normans," she sighed with contempt. Her Saxon heart drummed in her chest, the French ambrosia inside her from last nights forced charades still throwing her heart into irregular rhythms.
"How do you plead?" the clean-shaven Archbishop proposed. A cane welded to a replica of the crucifixion of Christ stood rigid in his liverspot-laden hand. Jesus' eyes stared at the accused.
"Guilty," a deep, almost musical voice conceded.
"And you, Brother?"
The second cloaked figure replied with the same, his voice drowned in resignation. "Guilty."
The Archbishop on his throne sighed sadly and passed his cane to the opposite hand. Jesus flinched. "We shall have a proceeding tomorrow to excommunicate the two of you from the church."
Both of the cloaked heads dropped and their slouched bodies turned and walked in perfect harmony out of the court room, the monks at each side singing their religious chants. Foolishness.
The Archbishop waved his ringed hand and muttered, "Bring her to me."
Fear passed over her heart as the guards gripped her upper arms tightly and rushed her across the dusty cement floor.
She felt gloved hands push roughly against her shoulders and she was forced to her knees on the steps before the Archbishop. He extended his white-gloved hand and pointed his purple ring towards her.
"You have sold your body, and for what?"
She stood silently, pleading his questioning to be of a rhetoric nature. Jesus closed his eyes with pity.
"For Damnation," he said sharply. She cringed and closed her eyes as his acrid spit stained her dilated pupils.
"You, too, shall be excommunicated at the hearing tomorrow."
As the guards tried to force her backwards, she spread her arms and caused them to hesitate for the slightest moment. "Do I not get to plead my own guilt or innocence?"
The Archbishop laughed, his voice echoing through the stained halls. She cringed. "You are guilty. There is no arguing that point." The Archbishop exchanged the cane in his hands again and used his free hand to wave loosely towards the back wall, wishing her out of his sight.
"I am innocent!" she shouted.
"You cannot be innocent if they are guilty."
"They raped me!"
"You're a whore!" the Archbishop shouted back, launching up from his throne and pointing at her with a quivering finger.
Her head dipped and tears tore at the blackened flesh around her eyes. Again, her bare heels were dragged across the abrasive concrete and through the open doors at the end of the hall. Her cry slowly faded into the echoing of her own voice as the doors eased shut and the guards took her back to her prison.
She silently ate her loaf of pimpernickel, tears wettening the revealed ends in perfect time with the wavering of the moon high in the nocturnal cornice of the sky. She listened to the spin of the keys outside her stone door, practically invisible from the inside excluding the subtle cracks in the wall marking the frame. She wanted to throw her last crumb of bread through the door and strike the guard, but walls are not selectively permeable.
She turned her squinted eyes back to her caged window, eyeing the silhoutted tree outside as it stood three-dimensional against the satirical sky. She closed her eyes and pictured herself as only five years old, a floral dress swaying around her deeply tanned ankles as she ran in imperfect circles, her golden hair spinning centrifugally around her cute face. She'd grow dizzy and tumble to the comforting grass for a couple minutes before climbing to her feet to do it all again.
Or to climb onto the tree swing.
Her mother gripped her sides from behind and drew her backwards while she hung onto the ropes at either side of her. Her mother released her without warning and she launched forward like the tongue out of an eager client's mouth. Her feet swayed below her rickety swing, her ferocious giggles echoing against the hollow trunk of the tree spawning the branches that supported her swing.
She threw her head back with sheer glee, her hair permeating through the air like silent death. Her mother laughed.
She stares blankly at the ceiling. Black wings extend from her back and she stands like the epitome of Hell, retained in this cell somehow. Her feet scrape loudly across the floor and guards answer. They tackle her to the ground. She screams. They punch. They scrape. They lacerate.
They rape.
They rape.
She revels in it.
And, somewhere, in the Archbishop's hand, Jesus closes his eyes in shame.
Bio:William Scott Porter is a new writer who spends half his days in classes and the other half split between working, writing, and making friends think he has a life. Rarely is he successful at the latter. However, just like all other writers, he loves to hear comments on his stories, no matter if they are horrible or uplifting (or just plain bland). Thus, he hopes to hear from you.
E-mail:wsporter@blindside.net
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