Femme Fatale.

35

*_*
"Carla!" Lax's voice is high and frantic as she shakes the weeping figure.
Carla's whole body shudders with intense tremors that threaten to tear her apart. Then as sudden as her shivering had started,it stops and she lies still.
She makes no sound. Her muscles stiff, unmoving and her eyelashes do not flutter.
Lax sighs deeply and moves to shake her again when Carla, her face completely without expression, begins to babble.
No movement, no emotion, nothing except the flow of incomprehensible words which pour from her mouth, filling the dark room as a bucket fills until it overflows.
Lax then dashes off to grab a glass of ice cold water and splashes it over Carla's face.
She wakes then.
Angry, broken and crying like a babe does when it's mother is missing.
*_*

Songs for the chapter:
Big Girls Cry  - Sia
Helium - Sia
Hush Hush Baby - Lxandra
Safe and Sound - Taylor Swift ft Civil Wars.

CARLA:

"Won't you sleep,granny?" I ask her as she stares out of the window into the dark night. She has been stressed lately,I've come to realize it. I know for sure there must be something bugging her.

"Granny.." I nudge her,shaking her back to reality. The chair swings a little as her thin body turns towards me. She forces a smile that fails to reach her brown eyes. No spark. Just smoky dark eyes resembling a fire that has died down in her eyes and her life as well.

She's mourning the death of my mother,her first born. With it, the reminder of her father's death.

She thinks because I am barely four years old I do not understand but I know for sure momma's is not coming back. I saw them chuck her in a hole and cover it up with soil as if she was a contagious leper that no one could bear be in close proximity with.

If she is to come back like what Grandpa says, how is she supposed to dig herself up? Better yet, why was everyone crying that day?

"I am not sleepy yet but go child,lay down I'll join you soon." She replies weakly and I return her my toothy grin showing three missing teeth at the front of my upper jaw.

I sit close to her,covering half of my body in her wide skirt. I flip the pages of the Holy Book that I have seen Grandma seek comfort in.

Unlike Grandma, Grandpa is not quite a religious man. He always argues that religion is an invention of a whimsical fairytale meant to entertain the unlearned and unprivileged of our drowning society.

On many occasions I have agreed with him, questioning if really such a good God existed, why would He allow us to suffer at the cruel hand of death.

Why would He take a mother from one so young and vulnerable? Why would he watch my father be depressed beyond sanity when He is called the comforter of the hopeless?

I shut my mind off my scepticism.

"I'm going to close this Book and randomly open any page then you will read it,okay?" Maybe a game with her God will help her.

She smiles so sadly it takes all the strength in me to not cry. She's too broken.

I hand her the Book once I have closed and opened it. She gently lifts it from my hands. I point at a random text.