written in lockdown, published never - covid19

A slap feels like a mixture of heat and ice hitting your cheek at a magnificent speed at just the right time. Your head moves with it because the speed and weight of the hand just drag the face along, sometimes, the entire body. And then, you're on the floor, your hands holding your face by reflex and also because another slap might be coming.

Worse than the slap though, is the silence. The silence that follows. It feels like shame that he let his hands get dirty, but sometimes, it feels like a threat.

Today was one of those days.

The boys were running everyone all mad, jumping on chairs, writing on walls, giving the dogs endless reasons to bark, fighting and crying, asking a dozen questions and running back and forth from the kitchen. This food we bought for the lockdown, it won't last another two days.

When you spend your days around the noise and activity, you get used to it.
If you are not used to it, it gets to you really badly. The different sounds at the same time, from every corner of your space, it becomes more than many people can take. And so, you snap. That is what I think happened.

One minute I was on the phone speaking to my mother, the next, I was on the floor.
I vaguely remember him speaking to me but I had been preoccupied. The child had been burning a fever for two hours and my attention had shifted, I was worried. No one was going to drive out and so I called my mother.  My mother was asking if I was wiping her with a wet warm cloth, I had barely opened my mouth to respond when the phone flew out of my hands, seconds later, something hit me and I fell.

He did not say anything. He walked back and turned the volume of the TV up.
The boys were quiet.
I saw them file out slowly and knew they would spend the next couple of hours hiding out at the neighbours. Every time there was some kind of confrontation, they found safety where they could get it. I did not blame them. Lately, it seemed like everyday, but now more than ever, for just the slightest of things or even nothing at all.

When I picked up my phone, screen shattered, my mother called.

It is the stress of the times mother.
Are you sure you did not upset him?
But how could I have done that? I was on the phone with you!
You know, you shouldn't complain. At least he spends his days at home now.
Maybe he shouldn't.