The Secret Society

By Jambiya Kai, World BEYOND War, September 29, 2020

The Secret Society

It was an ear-splitting slap.
Her head bounced off the wall and hit the floor with a thud
His dentures slipped to the corners of puffy lips;
The stench of fermented mash all too familiar.
Whack
Swish
Boom!
Ribs
Lips
Broken
Cracked
Size 12’s with split soles
working boots of a disgruntled man
Frills and polka dots were stained with bourbon and blood;
Her bruised blue eyes traced the coffee stains along the wall,
her ponytail he yanked till her scalp bled
The mother of 2 was dragged from kitchen to bedroom,
to be a wife.
The phone screamed into the bloody fight.
The male voice bleeped confidently –
“You have reached the home of Reverend Simons and his family.
We are not available but please leave your number………..”
Snores reverberate through whisky breath.
Everything goes bump in the night
Broken, Broken
Reverend Simons and his family were broken.
Katy slipped her battered body out of bed and limped to the study where she would prayerfully guard her sacred secret –
Pain split her head like a lightning bolt
Tomorrow they would bind her wounds as they had always done for the past years….
conspirators they were –
The dentist, The Doctor
And the Reverend.
They were all, broken.
But some stories are best kept hidden –
for a broken home, like Katy’s home
was better than no home at all.
Upstairs 7 year old Melissa snuggled close to her big sister –
“Don’t cry Mandy, I will pray for you,
maybe God will send us help”, she whimpered.
The sun yawned into a new day;
Little Melissa placed a single rose over her mother’s buried secret
The night claimed Katy’s life.
Beside her shattered dreams
The dentist and the doctor,
the Reverend and his congregation
lift their voices in solemn praise –
“Nearer my God to Thee”, they sing.*
Nearer to thee – “
Though like a wanderer
the sun gone down
darkness comes over me –
my rest a stone;
yet in my dreams I’d be
nearer to Thee.
What a Holy night
when reverend Simon took Katy’s life –
A heart attack they said.
On Sunday he will preach,
“We miss our Katie”.
And the congregation will mourn
And weep with guilt.

 

 

“Katy’s Secret” is a work of fiction based upon real documented incidences.
* “Nearer my God to Thee” is taken from a hymn written by Sarah Flower Adams.

 

 

Jambiya Kai is an emotive writer and storyteller from South Africa who weaves the tragedy and victory of the human experience into a tapestry of memorable imagery and metaphor. She speaks with honesty on the socio-spiritual challenges of our time.

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