Be Careful With Plots of Revenge

You Can't See in the Darkness

[A little fiction piece here, but Ahh, life imitates art. Or is it, “art imitates life”?]

Jesse sat in a dark room, biting her nails and crafting her revenge.

Peter was seven years older than his little sister and never really connected with her. Typical antics, like telling Jesse she was secretly adopted or calling her ugly names, filled the early years of Jesse’s life. She was a skinny little thing, a waif who never liked eating, so her parents, lacking any child psychology training, sometimes made her sit at the dinner table for hours till she “cleaned her plate,” gagging through each cold bite.

Pete relished that form of discipline and found excuses to pass by the table, often singing, “Big head and little body. . . it’s a wonder you still live.” 🎵

“Don’t turn sideways, Jesse” he’d say. “We won’t be able to see you.”

“Look how sickly you are—you’re not really like the rest of us. Mom and dad found you on the street and took you in. You don’t fit in this family.”

Perhaps these are typical big-brother behaviors, but Jesse sought advice on how to handle her brother. “Just ignore him,” adults advised.

How could she ignore the time he hid in her room waiting until she drifted off to the early, dreamy stage of sleep when he began breathing with a subtle rattle so that she screamed and ran out of her room thinking those nightmarish monsters under her bed were real. Her own mother did not take Jesse’s complaints too seriously.

Later, as an adult, Jesse mentioned to her mom all the times Pete set up a game in the neighborhood where he crouched behind obstacles while Jesse and her little friends had to run from Point A to Point B without getting shot by Pete’s air gun. Yes, Pete fired real BBs at their legs and the girls had welts to prove the landings.

Jesse’s mom did not believe this story. “I would never have let him get away with that,” she defended, causing Jesse to wonder if these were some sort of displaced memories. Ah, but her friend who lived across the street remembered too. This was not a collective hallucination.

On this night, Jesse gathered some courage while stewing in her bedroom. She could hear that her brother had been watching the little box television set in his room earlier but was quiet now, apparently dozing off in darkness. An idea formed in her young mind. She would sneak into her brother’s room, jump on his bed and startle him with a loud scream. Just a little sister pay-back.

On hands and knees, Jesse crept ever so quietly down the hall and into the dark bedroom. She relied on her senses to navigate since her eyes had not sufficient time to adjust. She inched forward toward her brother’s bed. She could hear him breathing in a steady rhythm of sleep. Forward just a bit more . . . the bed can’t be much farther, she thought, for these little bungalow houses have small rooms.

Time to make the leap.

With all of her strength and an angry force that came from deep within, Jesse made her jump, face forward, head-first. . . right into the solid, wet-plaster wall!

That’s not the only time Jesse ever hit a brick wall. Metaphorically, that would occur later in life too, as it tends to with most people plodding along one of life’s paths thinking they’re on a familiar route. Thinking they know the map by heart and not realizing that a storm rolled in and transformed the landscape. Running along in the dark, the unsuspecting person can crash right into a roadblock.

Above the ringing in her ears that night, Jesse heard the familiar, derisive laughter of her brother who had faked sleep, knowing that Jesse had no idea he had changed around his room. Moved the bed to the other side earlier. And when he heard his sister creeping down the hall, he figured she would be disoriented in the dark and perhaps bump into something. He could not have orchestrated a better plan than to have her crash right into the wall.

She nursed her wounds and made her way back to the familiarity of her own room, quietly weeping. Don’t let him hear. Don’t let him know she was hurt. Learn something here. Didn’t someone once say, “expect the unexpected”?

Note to self: Proceed with caution. Avoid those brick walls always standing firm somewhere down dark hallways. Let your eyes adjust a bit.

[The protagonist in my narrative nonfiction book hits a brick wall too, as you might guess, but picks her-wounded-self up and shines a light on the path to healing. I hope those of you who have also crashed will accompany me on the journey to restoration.]