Day 1025: 5 Minute Freewrite: Tuesday - Prompt: broken nose

in Freewriters4 years ago

Back to the present … Mrs. Slocum-Lofton calmly breathed the scent given to her by the man she had chosen to marry, and looked at the full blossoming of the man she hadn't. All the good feeling there had been, that she had mourned because she had indeed loved Robert Lee Braxton more in courting days, was now gone. She had once thought he was SO handsome … now, the thought flashed into her mind that she would like to make him look like the horror he was … add a broken nose, a dislocated jaw, two black eyes … .

But Mrs. Slocum-Lofton was still every inch a lady. There were people to do such things when necessary, but she would never stain her hands with an opponent's blood. She was a more expert destroyer.

“You know, there is a prophecy about a man like you, Robert,” she said to him, “a man of at least partial Roman descent who would rule the world by craft and subterfuge and bribe, and you would almost fit the bill … but I have recently read that he will care nothing for women.”

“I know,” said Mr. Braxton. “The choice was before me. I might have fulfilled the prophecy, and the white man's face indeed be seen and honored as god to the whole world by now, openly worshiped. My lineage would qualify me. But I was not strong enough, for there was a woman's face I worshiped in my heart, so I turned my back upon the world, and kept my orbit here, just to finally see her come here. That was what was promised me instead for my labor, and you are here, my goddess, my adored one – late, but not never.”

“Poor Gellie,” Mrs. Slocum-Lofton said. “You did quite a lot with her – was that sweet soul worth so little to you?”

“Evangeline was a good woman, and an excellent wife,” he said. “She was no help, though – everything had to be kept from her, because she was so delicate in her thinking. But, she filled the gap for a time.”

“Until her time was up?”

“She died easily, Selene – I had to get her out of the way and did so, but I had it done easily for her. She had filled the gap you left as well as any woman might, and that was worth a lot to me. I wanted her dead, not hurt – and so it was. Of course, had I known you were going to be so obstinate in 1975, I probably could have let her live out her days or at least quite a few more. But, one can't know everything about the future!”

“Well, I can't fault you for dedication – to the pit of hell itself, you are certainly dedicated,” Mrs. Slocum-Lofton said – and Robert Lee Braxton, in his madness, thought that was a compliment!