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Cam looked up into the night sky and thought how extremely dark it was..”black as night”, she thought and giggled a bit though she felt it wasn’t that clever. She could swear she saw stars, hell, complete constellations that she had never seen before. She knew the moon wouldn’t be out tonight but never imagined it could be this perfect. Then she looked down and was pleased to see the blackness of the night sink beneath her. She was sitting on the edge of this, “oh what would you call it”, she thought, “ cliff, hill, no ravine, that was perfect, a rocky ravine!” which reminded her of that old Beatles song, “Rocky Raccoon” and she started humming it softly to herself. She felt it was kind of appropriate and giggled again.
She heard a noise and turned around half expecting to see John standing there smiling at her. They used to come up here when they were first dating, long before they were married. But, all she saw was the old clunker that she had driven to this spot. She had gone out of town and paid cash for this piece of shit hoping the damn thing would just make it up here. She herself wouldn’t be caught dead in the thing. This thought started the giggling again and turned into a full belly laugh until she was breathless. “Holy fuck, get a grip, Cam.” She thought.
She felt a sense of peace that she hadn’t felt for two years. She hoped she would get rid of the tension that her body seemed to layer on her like a suit of armor. She had a Pavlovian experience every weekday at 5:00. John would get home anytime after that and the wait was torture. Her body would stiffen with each passing moment. She swore she would go for hours without even breathing if it was one of his late nights. But, no longer. The lessons had paid off. Though she felt she probably hadn’t needed them after all. It had been easier than expected. But, what the hell, better safe than sorry. Jesus, that was like her mantra. She hoped she would never need it again.
When John had gotten home this evening he had been in a ‘good’ mood. His repentant mood she called it. Their relationship had been in that part of the cycle. She had first heard about relationship cycles when she went to a ‘Woman’s Awareness’ group with a friend of hers. The meeting was about spousal abuse and it really pissed her off. But, she wasn’t pissed off at the men she found herself annoyed with the women. “ Why did they put up with that shit?”, she had thought at the time. She never did understand them just as over the past two years she didn’t understand herself. Maybe she would never understand. “Maybe I should go into therapy, “ she thought. And laughed again. “This beautiful, dark evening is all the therapy I need.”
Cam got up and walked over to the car. It was parked as close to the rocky ravine as she could comfortably park it. The driver’s window was rolled down and she leaned in and put her mouth close to her husband’s ear. “Looks like somebody will be caught dead in the car.” and smiled. She set the car in neutral and went around to the back. She placed her hands on the trunk of the car knowing she had the strength to push the car the couple of feet needed. She had pushed John’s car plenty of times to ‘kick start’ it because the bastard was too cheap to buy a new battery. “Fuck that, fuck him!” she thought. She took a few moments to reminisce about the evening. John had been contrite and apologetic. He had held her in a close embrace. His last. Her lessons took over and she tilted the revolver muzzle up. One shot to the gut, messy and ineffective as a definite kill shot. So, when he fell to the floor, looking at her with what appeared to be bemusement, like this must be some sort of joke, she shot him again. She felt like kicking him while he was down. How many times had he done that to her? The hardest part had been getting his dumb ass in the car. She seriously thought about chopping him up. It scared her that she thought she might like it too much. But, this was it, the culmination of her plans. And she began to push. It took a lot but she felt almost possessed with power. And over the edge it went. There was a great noise but she wasn’t staying around for long. She was fit and she would walk to the bus station. She already had her ticket and there was no need to come back.
As she heard the car go over, it was too dark to actually see it after that first initial plunge, she wondered, “is this the end of a small sad situation or the start of something great?” Just then she looked up into the inky black sky and saw a shooting star. She thought she already had her wish. But then realized she had to start thinking bigger. “Lead me to the next one,” she said, “ I’ll start my own, fucking ‘Woman’s Awareness’ group. And began her long walk back to town.
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