By Sara L. Bendt

The clock had just struck 3:35 in the morning as the shocked man unlocked his apartment door and trudged his tired body into the darkened room. The weak yellow light from the apartment complex hallway shown through the partially opened front door and shined on a small shelf in his apartment revealing two pictures to his eyes. One, of a young woman, another, of a little girl and boy that embraced each other in a pile of dry fall leaves that appeared to be like fire beneath them. But, the man was too grief stricken to look over at the memories of the family he had only earlier that day.

His eyes were fixed onto the bed room door and he didn’t dare want to move them to look at anything else. If he got to the bedroom he wouldn’t have to look in the den, where it all happened. But his curiosity tortured his better judgment until his eyes gave in and flashed into the den where he saw, actually SAW what happened earlier that night. He saw and enraged man grab his wife and throw her head first into the wall, then into the glass coffee table. He saw her small bruised body sail into the fragile table and the shattered pieces go into her clammy skin and scatter around the room like crystals glittering in the swaying lights.

That enraged man was him.

With a gasp Ronald Jenson woke up with sweat pouring down his face and dampening his prison pajamas. He got out of his bunk and paced until his sweaty hands stopped shaking and the tears stopped rolling down his flushed cheeks. It was the same every night, same dream, same routine. The prison guards had long since gotten used to this sad sight and thought nothing of it. I suppose they thought it was poetic justice.

Doctor McKullen scribbled something on his clipboard as Ronald sat nervously in the uncomfortable wooden chair. His foot tapped rhythmically on the hard tile floor.

"So the dreams are still coming just once a night?" the doctor asked, looking over his wire rimmed glasses at Ronald.

Ronald let a bitter scoff escape his lips, "Once a night is enough Doc, believe me."

"Are they still as vivid?"

Ronald nodded his head vigorously, "They haven’t changed, I still see it all as it happened. God Doc, I didn’t know a woman that small would have so much blood inside her. . . I just. . . I didn’t think I pushed her that hard, you know.

Doctor McKullen shook his head slowly, silently in his mind he wondered exactly how hard was just hard enough in Ronald mind, how much could you pound on a woman before it was excessive. "Look Ronald, I only see you once every six months and though you show extreme improvement with controlling your temper, I worry. You see, by now you have to understand that your family has gotten on with their lives. You’re getting out soon, and if you visit them it might cause an uproar that no one needs."

"This dream will continue until I die if I don’t find them. They are what has kept me alive these ten years. Leona and Jack are in high school by now, they might understand." Ronald’s eyes were pleading, desperate.

"Ronald, you almost killed their mother!"

"Time heals all wounds, isn’t that what they say?" Ronald replied coolly. "I’ll see them again." The way that that statement shot out of Ronald’s mouth sent chills up the doctor’s spine.

Two months had past since that day. And today Ronald was busy packing his suitcase. It was amazing how little he had accumulated in such a long time living in the same room. Today he was a free man.

"We’ll be missing you Ron, don’t come back!" The prison guard said.

"Don’t ever plan to man, never."

Ronald said goodbye to the few people that he had became friends with, collected the belongings he had and left with two guards that he had never seen before.

On the bus Ronald went over his plan for the millionth time, how he would do it, how he would finish what he started ten years ago. Time didn’t heal wounds at all, it just gave you a chance to figure out the perfect revenge.

Somewhere between forcing his way into his ex-wife’s house and tying her up, the bus swung out of control. Ronald and the guards were thrown from side to side as the bus rolled closer and closer to the guard rail of the bridge.

Ronald opened his eyes to the sound of metal scrapping against rock. He saw two things and thought one thought as his body, sealed in its metal coffin, took its final resting place in the watery tomb of the river. He saw a jack-knifed semi lying on its side on the road, and he saw the two guards unconscious. His last thought was of his wife, this was probably her fault too.

Ronald saw no light.

Oddly enough the guards lived.

* * *

Copyright 3/3/97 by Sara L. Bendt

Revised 12/31/07

All Rights Reserved

Published by Bamblebrush Press