Flashback...Anger

There wasn’t anything he could do. It was a bad day. One of those days when nothing made sense, and there was no escape. The rage had been there under the surface, and as he looked on he could almost literally see it overwhelm his mother. He was terrified of her anger, it was to his seven year old mind unconquerable, and there was nowhere to hide. Silently he prepared himself to take the brunt of it all. Better him than his brother and sister. They were little more than babies.

The flour. Leaving it in reach of the young ones had been a mistake. They didn’t know any better, and to them it was a toy. A game to be played. Snow on a temperate fall day. It was everywhere by the time he made it downstairs. Covered from head to toe, they had been happy moments before they were discovered. He should have been watching them, he should have stopped them, he should have known. He was responsible.

As the yelling ensued, he watched his siblings cover their ears. Good they were learning to protect themselves. Looking back at his mother he stood stoically, trying not to flinch as she whipped out screaming, it was his fault, why hadn’t he been watching them. The kicking started later, not a lot of it, but enough to scare him. Enough, to hurt.

He was terrified that the anger would be directed at his brother and sister. He didn’t want it himself, but he would have taken any of it on his own shoulders, if it would protect them. He was after all responsible for them. He was all they had when things got bad, and he was their whipping boy.

That he had to be there would hurt him for a long time. He would flinch at physical contact, and shrink away from intimacy. He would seek anger from those he loved, anger was something he could understand, it was something he would grow to need, and it would break him.