The scrunched up paper on her hand was moist from her nervous sweat. Rita unwrapped it. Wiritten in firm pencil lines, the address pulled at her. Calling her. Ever so loudly.
She looked up from the paper note. Number twenty-three. Yes, this was it.
Her heart beat in sync with the silent calling of the penciled address.
She hadn't expected it to be such a nice looking house. Somehow she had assumed someone's living quarters would be as bright or as dark as their soul. Rita thrust the paper note into the pocket of her raincoat. She adjusted her rain bucket hat, pushing her thick dark curls under its edges.
Pushing herself to be certain, she took assertive steps forward and crossed the threshold of their property, ignoring the beauty of the blooming flowers and the thick greenery of their garden, ignoring the majesty of the magnolia tree that grew upwards protecting the façade of the house from unwanted visitors and indescrete voyeurism, and ignoring the gentle and happy chirping of birds scattered across the neighbourhood. No form of soft beauty would prevent her from doing what she had come to do. Rita had spent years looking for resolution and had traveled miles to attain it. She was not going to stop now.
She walked up to the stoople steps, turned to the front door and raised her fist, ready to knockk on that door. Knock on the stability, the certainty, the peace out of them. They would learn their lesson. She would take from them a fraction of what they took from her. And that would show them,. She would have her revenge, would have her say, and would spit them back into place.
Yet, her hand could not come down on the wood.
Rita struggled with herself, pushing for her hand to come knocking on that door. Whatever held her hand, held her breath too, and she felt her chest stiffen at every attempt to break through her paralysis.
Eventually, she gave up. The air flew onto her lungs like a summer breeze and her arm collapsed by her side, carrying her weight down until she agreed to sit down on the step. She buried her head in between her knees, the heavy denim brushing against her cheeks, her arms clasping her legs as a chain on a vault that doesn't want to be opened.
Her breath quickened, with anger at herself for not having knocked on that door. And then it soothed. It flew in and out like the ocean tide, inviting her to be part of the rhythmic in and out, to be part of the cyclical whythm of life, that life that cared not about the individual, for each individual is but a grain of sand in the hourglass of eternity.
She had gone through terroble things. Unspeakable things.
In that house lived someone who had had the power to stop everything. To prevent her and many others' suffering. A word would have been enough to put an end to it. One decision.
Instead of protecting the millions who had no saying, that person had decisded for whatever benefited them. Their one life, the confort of that one life, had been ascribed more value than the millions of lives that had no choice but to live without the consequences of this person's decision.
Rita unravelled from her own embrace.
The soft light bouncing from the garden's greenery and blooms embraced her gently. She noticed the shadows of the magnolia tree teaching over her boots. The birds' chirping rocked her into the rhythmic in and out of her breath and of the wind.
She pondered her options.
She had thought multiple times of what she would say and what gestures she would use for emphasis. She didn't have a definite speech, she had many rehearsed options to pick up from when the time came.
Sitting on the stoop, noticing the garden's life and considering whether or not to knock at that door, Rita wondered if she had already found her resolution.
carolina caetano, Feb 2023
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