Memory

The curtains are pulled and all she can smell are the memories. The room was
musty and dim, everything caked in dust from years of torment. She's finally
moving out of her fathers house. As she packed all of her belongings, the
memories began to flood back. She never really knew what was worse, the abuse
or the hours locked in her room after. As she looked at the last picture frame, it
finally donned on her- It wasn't the lashing or the yelling. It wasn't the constant
dread she wore like a heavy cloak on her shoulders. It was the fact that she
remembered how kind her father was before. Tears began to well in her eyes as
she looked at the dusty picture. A family photo. A picture of her as a baby, Her
father with a bright smile on his face, his eyes shining with the light stronger than
that of a hundred cities and glowing like that of the sun thinly veiled by a cloud.
Her father as he was. And next to him, her mother, reduced to an echo.