Preparedness and Shit

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are:

French toast ~ wallet ~ dog food ~ trail mix ~ iPad

It was submitted by: https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/

Being prepared and skilled *shouldn't* be a radical concept, but it's treated like one. Let's go forward from this point with an open mind. 

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A lot of people are still ignoring what should be obvious more and more every day. There have been calls for a second civil war, and the more violence that keeps occurring propels us further along that route with every passing week. To some experts, it’s all but guaranteed. The question, to them, is when not if, and this summer has done more to progress that possibility than any others in a long while. And while I hope that I am wrong, I also feel like ignoring the slowly accelerating descent into fascism that’s happening is what has allowed it to fester…to grow and spread and taint more and more of our way of life. I also think it’s better to be prepared for something major than to sit back and hope and pray you never have to deal with it while you dine on French toast and hashbrown waffles at brunch downing mimosas to hide your anxiety.

Yes, it’s more numbing to grab an ipad and scroll through the same 3 apps while dissociating for hours, but there’s also benefit in being prepared for emergencies, to have a plan in case something bad happens where you are that forces you to leave quickly or to hole up and do your own thing for awhile, and I’m going to give some resources to you in this post that might be helpful in making that plan and taking at least a moderate amount of control in a life that currently feels like chaos if you pay even a modicum amount of attention to the news especially as more and more countries have alt right governments. India’s prime minister is a literal Nazi, for example. He’s a member of the Nazi party in India. We haven’t learned much from our past mistakes, and we ignore even more.

Some of this will be common sense for any kind of emergency situation like having waterproof storage for your wallet, but obviously it’s more than that. Survival medicine, foraging, how to use every bit of land that you have access to for gardening, how to prep food for long term storage, how to make trail mix and homemade dog food, etc. Use them as you need to. And also keep in mind that in any scenario, your best bet is to find a group who all share these skills to make it longer term. Talk to your friends and family about these things and help them learn.

An overall base guideline 

· Checklist: https://theprepared.com/prepping-basics/guides/emergency-preparedness-checklist-prepping-beginners

· Tips for different scenarios: https://theprepared.com/emergencies/

· Survival tips: https://hueypnewtongunclub.org/survival-programs

· Intro to Mutual Aid: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/andrej-grubacic-david-graeber-introduction-to-mutual-aid

· Building community groups and mutual aid: https://www.paperrevolution.org/mutual-aid/

· Activist tools: https://www.paperrevolution.org/activist-tools/

Good overall resources 

· Coal Cracker Bushcraft (youtube)

· Gray Bearded Green Beret (youtube)

· Tacticool Girlfriend (youtube)

· Live Like the World is Dying (podcast. I listen on spotify)

· The Prepared (online site)

· https://nchfp.uga.edu/tips/tips_home.html (food tips)

· The Anarchist Library https://theanarchistlibrary.org/special/index

· Free publications, books, audiobooks, videos: www.archive.org

· War on Everyone by Robert Evans (also check out his podcasts It could Happen Here and Behind the Bastards)

· The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

· https://www.paperrevolution.org/library/

Emergency Prep for if you have to leave your home or “bug out” 

· Ultralight bag with gear recommendations https://youtu.be/t4GYjhwfvwU

· Supplemental kit for urban environments: https://youtu.be/4vNEIJLk56I

· Several articles discussing individual items for your kit: https://theprepared.com/bug-out-bags/

· Winter supplemental kit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JilgutU2a5k

· Another Winter/super cold quick camp setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1dYj9IbmPA

· Longer term wigwam setup if you’re in one area for a while before moving on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KbjX92VxnI

· Hygiene while on the move including info for people with periods (cw: cisnormative language): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ju01IPSwc4

· High calorie trail mix recipe: https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/yummy-recipe-high-protein-sweet-salty-trail-mix/

· Making fire in rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lZcPzyg014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Il5_F-ZAg

· Concealed wilderness fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29woKujuuFs

· The beginning of a series on map reading (all are recommended): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLSanPt1BQc

· 5 minute tarp shelter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtnssu5gobk

· 10 survival shelters in under 10 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1jhcepnnCY

· Ultralight medical kit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaCTzaCZnWI

· Diy firestarters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BFu3dVmwQ0

· Best dry bags (for your wallet and shit): https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-roll-top-dry-bag/

Cooking for camps and blackout/brownout situations 

(also keep in mind if this will call people to you and leave you vulnerable. Only cook when it’s safe). We’ll have complex and simple recipes depending on what food sources are still available) 

· Complex probably wishful thinking recipes with subsections for “car” camping and vegans https://www.freshoffthegrid.com/camping-recipe-index/

· Camp bread (this same channel has many others that are good to watch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Qo6kTkVDo

· Cooking fire building and how to make cowboy coffee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9m9KdtzILQ

· Jerky and tipi smoker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmCjeXK0_S0

· Off grid cooking: https://storageprepper.com/food/top-8-grid-cooking-methods/

· Warm weather survival food kit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOgajE-Mfis

· Survival trapping kit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrpbffX6vOQ

Foraging:

· How to create a medicinal plants reference guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJUjxreelF4

· 3 part series on plants (video 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4aTF_F9-oI

· Finding and harvesting fatwood for good fire starting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enXEPGwWRG4

· Urban foraging: https://fallingfruit.org/docs/David%20Craft%20-%20Urban%20Foraging.pdf

· Natural vit c: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMDKK8GQnDc

· 7 nuts that can be foraged: https://storageprepper.com/food/7-edible-nuts-can-forage-fall/

· List of recommended products from foraging knives to resource books: https://www.wildedible.com/wild-food-resources

· Resources: https://identifythatplant.com/foraging-resources/

· Online resources list: https://www.kitchenunnecessary.com/stories/2020/4/16/online-resources-for-wild-food-foraging

· Using Black Walnut for iodine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tMP8B06uHA

· Milkweed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xxRu1Pezco

Trauma, emergency, and wilderness medicine:

· A list for bag essentials and recommended links for self teaching: https://iaf-fai.org/2020/08/31/skills-for-revolutionary-survival-1-trauma-medical-gear/

· Wound closure in the field https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmmZStW2wY

· Podcast with pdf downloadable transcripts for emergency medicine: http://embasic.org/podcast-direct-download/

· Survival Doctor’s guide to wound care (there’s a second book available for burns): https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B008M2E4IM&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_NdfuFbXMMCKC0

· In the extreme case you are in the wild without a first aid kit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O65FC8AEzIU

· Military medicine downloadables: https://fas.org/irp/doddir/milmed/index.html

· Another ifak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZacUj_mADWs

· Applying an Israeli bandage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj8tJhXX-8w

· How you lose body heat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RX7cDrUSi8

· Street medic guide: https://www.paperrevolution.org/street-medic-guide/

Bushcraft for long term scenarios 

· How to choose and use a knife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOymA4RG638

· 18 Essential knife tactics for bushcrafting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCNoPuZw3oM&t=27s

· How to maintain your knife in the field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qImoRFy8Wbk

· How to build a “camp” bathroom if you don’t have running water or housing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmNfmRMqYD4

· Lashing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ystfcYBmxk

· L7 trigger traps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2SHSK4vPF0

· Ridgeline toggles (for shelters): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7HxCBzcNBQ

· Making needle and thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJzIf_2fR00

· Basic knots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrOc3L9s4fQ

· More knots: https://theprepared.com/survival-skills/guides/best-3-survival-knots-every-prepper-should-learn/

· Choosing bladed tools: https://theprepared.com/gear/guides/how-to-choose-bladed-tools/

· Spring pole traps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrVVIMQNagY

· Making rope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrhgeSgYxgM

Staying hydrated/clean water/additional hygiene 

· Beating dehydration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LejPsJEcCp0

· Survival water kit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N96mFI-CKyA

· Sourcing water from the wild: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miuXQ6QqLGc

· Water storage at home: https://theprepared.com/homestead/reviews/best-two-week-emergency-water-storage-containers/

· Staying clean without running water: https://storageprepper.com/water/get-clean-without-running-water/

Gun and defense basics

· Ballistics protection: https://iaf-fai.org/2020/09/01/skills-for-revolutionary-survival-3-ballistic-protection/

· Personal protection equipment: https://iaf-fai.org/2020/08/31/skills-for-revolutionary-survival-2-basic-personal-protective-equipment/

· Various firearm basics, reloading ammunition, chemical exposure: https://socialistra.org/edu/ https://theprepared.com/self-defense/

· Basic gun safety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvTrIMvK6cs

· Black Bloc: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anti-racist-action-the-green-mountain-anarchist-collective-black-bloc-tactics-communique

Long term food storage 

· Pickling: https://storageprepper.com/food/preppers-guide-pickling/

· Building a pantry the LDS way: https://theprepared.com/blog/review-lds-food-plan/

· Best techniques for long term storage: https://storageprepper.com/food/the-best-techniques-for-long-term-food-storage/

· Canning tips: https://storageprepper.com/food/12-canning-tips-save-life/

· Best foods to buy in bulk: https://storageprepper.com/food/the-7-best-foods-to-buy-in-bulk-and-where-to-get-them/

· Freezing: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/freeze.html

· Storing guidelines and lengths: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/store.html

· Smoking fish at home: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/cure_smoke.html

· Most recent consumer guide for buying a deep freezer: https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/freezers/buying-guide/index.htm

· Freeze drying techniques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzoHJn1lo_w

Gardening and homesteading: 

· Keeping rabbits and hens for protein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpQS-I2ViZo

· 5 indoor fast growing veggies and herbs: https://storageprepper.com/food/5-fast-growing-foods-you-can-grow-indoors/

· Edible landscaping plants: https://storageprepper.com/food/10-edible-plants-to-add-to-your-landscaping/

· Starting seeds indoors: https://storageprepper.com/planning/start-seeds-indoors-better-summer-garden/

· Variety of gardening techniques, instructions, top survival scenario choices, etc: https://www.youtube.com/c/CaliforniaGardening/videos

· Building raised garden beds (see Gardener Scott’s channel for other raised bed tips and so much

more. Super valuable source): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRAieQI4SWo

· Easy fruit trees to grow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_FUwWtxVz8

· More gardening and small animal keeping videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/Selfsufficientme/videos

Communications: 

· Ham radio basics and resources: http://www.arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio

· Beginner’s guide: https://theprepared.com/survival-skills/guides/beginners-guide-amateur-ham-radio-preppers/

· Ham radio guides for hobbyists and for survival https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChAu6Cof9KlfFxSbL9ytosQ

Pets 

· Fema tips for pets: https://www.ready.gov/pets

· Cheap recipes for dog food if you can’t loot any: https://thebark.com/content/save-money-homemade-dog-food

· Some emergency care tips for pets: https://www.merckvetmanual.com/special-pet-topics/emergencies/emergency-care-for-dogs-and-cats

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://bakinginatornado.com/

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

The Crazy Mama Llama https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/

The Rat

Since we haven't been doing Sunday Confessions, I have a good friend sending me some words as a challenge prompt to see what I can do with them. Same principle, but I'm the only one writing. This week, my words were coagulated, general, battlefield, intricate, hindsight, and cerebral. The following is what I came up with... hope you enjoy. 

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The scene before her looked like a battlefield. Coagulated blood pooled on the faded green linoleum and had spattered on the cheap white cabinets in the kitchen. More of it still ran down the ripped floral wallpaper in small lines drying as it slowly slid towards the floor. Hair and gore speckled the walls and floors mixed and sticking to the dots of blood. It wasn’t a pleasant scene and certainly not something she was proud of, but it had to be done.

Much like an army general surveying the casualties before him, she assessed the clean up, the costs to get rid of the stains, the hours she would spend scrubbing on her hands and knees, the trouble she would have moving the body, his body. Like the army general, the spilled blood before her was just another cost of the battle she had waged. The loss of human life wasn’t celebrated, by far, but it was accepted. In the general’s case, it is, of course, expected. Given the way things had gone downhill over the last few years, she guessed it was pretty well expected in her case, too.

Sitting there staring at the mess, hindsight working in full force, she supposed she did have chances to prevent this outcome. To leave, move, start a new life, hide… But she hadn’t. Instead, she had stayed right here in this house knowing he would come back but hoping he would give up, knowing in her heart that he would never stop but hoping she could just go on with her life without running, without hiding.

It wasn’t some intricately woven tale of sordidness and lies that led her here like some half-baked dramatic Hollywood flick or a cerebral crime film. She chose to love the wrong man. That was it. She loved him in all his craziness and clinginess. She loved him in spite of his jealousy, in spite of the days he would find a random piece of trash in the yard and scream at her for hours about who she was sleeping with, in spite of the fact that on more than one occasion it was him that came home smelling like someone else’s perfume. Then one day something clicked. She was standing in the rain in his backyard listening to his ranting, cowering under his demands to know who had been there, turning red as he called her a slut, a whore, a trashbag, a used up hag, and it finally hit her that she didn’t have to live this way, that this wasn’t love. Not in any real sense. She sat through it that day, the accusations and delusions, but that was it. The very next morning she packed up everything she owned, left him a note telling him to eat shit, and walked away.

She supposed she should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy, that she couldn’t just leave.

That first day, she went home to her mom’s with her tiny red suitcase and a couple of garbage bags full of her stuff. Her mom took one look at her standing there completely beaten down and pulled her inside for a hug whispering “it’s about damn time” as she squeezed her tighter. It was later that night when he showed up. She heard his battered old truck turning down the driveway and her heart felt like it might explode from fear, but she stayed put. Her mom refused to open the door, but he didn’t give up. For an hour straight he beat on the doors and the windows while she hid in a corner of her old room clutching a stuffed bunny to her chest. Her mom finally had to call the cops. He left, but he showed up the next night. And the next. And the one after that. He showed up at her job, followed her home from work, sat in the parking lot when she was in a store. Every waking moment he was there waiting for her.

She refused to talk to him. She filed for a restraining order. He was arrested over and over again for trespassing on her mom’s property, but nothing seemed to ever be done about it really. Until he got drunk and started shooting out the windows, that is. That was a couple years ago or so. He’d barely missed shooting her mom—a couple inches lower and she would have been killed. So, the police finally took it seriously and locked his ass up. He was supposed to serve 5 years. The number of times he’d been arrested hadn’t helped in the end, and he’d gotten the maximum sentence for discharging a firearm in a residential area, trespassing, and battery. Why the fuck didn’t he get charged with attempted murder? Just ask the boys in blue always looking out for other dicks and making sure to crack jokes about “crazy” women.

Eventually, she felt safe enough to move into her own place in what she thought was a pretty good neighborhood. She had never really stopped looking over her shoulder. She never stopped thinking that she saw him in the shadows or saw his car in the parking lot wherever she went, but she was getting to the point where she could make it to work every day, where she wasn’t having panic attacks multiple times a week. She was starting to get more comfortable in her own skin again and able to leave the house without breaking down in her car then running inside to hide in her room under the covers like a child being scared of the bogey man. Things were, at least, improving.

Then she got the call last week.

He was being paroled, and the state was offering her some victim’s counseling as a consolation prize.

Oh, yay, she had thought. Counseling. He’s the fucking nutter who won’t leave me alone and I’m the one who needs counseling.

It must have happened one day when she was at work, but she had no idea how long he had actually been there. There meaning inside her house. She had heard the sounds coming from the attic long before he actually showed his face, but in that newfound comfort, in her belief that her new address, new look, and new job would keep her hidden, she had failed to call the police and get things checked out feeling, instead, that it must be a rat or a squirrel that would find its way back to freedom soon enough. In a way she was right about it being a rat, but he certainly hadn’t found the freedom he was looking for unless being a bloody mess on her kitchen floor having lost a fight with a baseball bat counted.

She drew herself up from the floor. She would *not* be calling the police. She would not be on the receiving end of a million questions and a formal inquiry when they had been the ones to fail time and again, when he had been the villain in all this not her. Instead, she opened the cabinet, threw on some rubber gloves, grabbed the bleach and set to work. 

It was going to be one hell of a night.

Indigo Blues

This is my very first time ever participating in the Use Your Words challenge. I think I'm going to have to keep this up. Despite what you're about to read, I had a lot of fun with this piece and with making the words fit together like a puzzle. So, this is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words were submitted by  http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com and are: 

Indigo ~ graphic ~ hindsight ~ fountain ~ thirst ~ under the bridge

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Sometimes I feel

Like I don't have a partner

Sometimes I feel

Like my only friend

Is the city I live in

The city of angels

Lonely as I am

Together we cry…

She hears the song playing on a nearby radio and is immediately thrown back to the past in graphic, vivid detail. Her former husband loved this song, Under the Bridge. Every time it came on, he’d blare the radio until the speakers would nearly blow and (often drunkenly) belt the lyrics at the top of his lungs out of sync and off key. As annoying as it was especially when she was trapped in the car with him and thought surely he was going to rupture her ear drums with the higher pitched parts, this is one of her better memories of the man. Hearing this song makes her nostalgic for the good times, for the man she knew before the booze took over, before the pain, before she ended up here. When she remembered him singing along at impossible volumes to his favorite tunes, she was remembering what it was like to be loved and to love someone more than she ever thought possible.

In hindsight, she should have known that things weren’t good when he stopped turning the radio annoyingly loud and singing along, when he stopped telling her to listen to this motherfucker play during his favorite parts. When the music stopped giving him chill bumps, he stopped being himself. No one who loves music that much could ever turn it off like a light switch; no one could go from full on to nothing at all without it indicating a deeper problem. Somewhere along the way, though, that’s exactly what seemed to happen.

Surely, it must have been a slow progression, but it seemed to her to have happened all at once. One day he was the same old man she had loved since high school. One day he was a completely unrecognizable monster. It was impossible for her to pinpoint the exact moment the beast erupted from her husband’s skin in a Kafkaesque metamorphosis. But, that monster was all she had left one day--a human-like creature with a short temper, a penchant for violence, and an unquenchable thirst for alcohol. Music didn’t resonate with him anymore, and she became more or less a metaphorical and literal punching bag. Her own metamorphosis left her a shell of her former self covered in blacks and blues, scars both mental and physical, and an overall deflated quality that spoke volumes about her state of mind.

She looks down at the faded indigo jumpsuit she’s wearing with a frown on her face. The song she heard that took her back down the road to the past has long since faded, but her travels have yet to be over. Remembering the good times conjures memories of the bad as well which always leads her to think about why she’s here locked in this prison every day hustling to get a few stamps to write home and maybe for an occasional piece of candy. Being in prison blues didn’t do a thing to curb her sweet tooth.

Her mind is flooded with fuzzy Technicolor images of fights that ended with broken bones and shattered teeth, nights of name-calling and fear. No matter how hard she tried to forget the thrown ashtrays, the cigarettes stubbed out on her skin, the names hurled like daggers in her direction, those memories wouldn’t leave her. There was no point even attempting to forget the night that led her to where she’s standing right now, where she had been for years now, where she would spend the rest of her life. There was a big part of her that hoped she’d be able to erase it forever, but there was an even bigger part of her that felt the torture of these memories was the universe punishing her for what she did. Maybe her whole existence was meant as a punishment for transgressions in a past life. It sure fucking seemed that way.

She doesn’t even realize that she’s weeping openly, a no-no in this place, when she thinks back on that night. She had spent a couple hours in the kitchen putting together her recipe for shepherd’s pie, his favorite meal. It was his 43rd birthday. She wasn’t working and couldn’t afford a gift (not that she could have gone out to get him one without consequences) so she decided to make him his favorite for him to make up for what she couldn't buy. He was supposed to be at work that day. He was at work that day until he was canned for coming in hungover again. After that, who knows…but obviously he had been drinking. He came in stumbling and slurring hours after he should have been home with a huge fountain drink in one hand and a burger in the other. He seemed so jovial for once, laughing and joking around with her. And, after a few shared laughs, she let her guard down. Mistake.

“I don’t know why I bothered making this huge shepherd’s pie if you were just going to go get fast food, Tommy.”

That’s all it took. Just that one little sentence to set him off. He whirled around on her then and before she knew what happened, he had thrown the entire drink in her face before pelting her with the remainder of his burger. From the smell, he had definitely poured out the soda in favor of far more booze than mixer.

She has replayed this moment in her mind over and over and over again. He had done so many things to her over the years that she had never quite been able to figure out what made her snap that night, what finally pushed her over the edge, but there’s no reasoning that makes total sense. She guesses now that in part it’s because she wasn’t much of a drinker at all. The reek of cheap bourbon in her face mixed with the ketchup sliding down her faded black tshirt after she’d worked so hard in the kitchen that afternoon followed by the sound of his booming laughter sent her into a rage she’d never felt before. He tottered off into the living room to pass out in his chair like he always did, but instead of getting cleaned up and letting it go like she’d done time and time before, she sat there stinking of booze and grease, seething.

This is where her memory gets tricky. She remembers standing in the kitchen and feeling that rage take over her whole body. She remembers gritting her teeth and finally wiping her face dry, but after that everything is a blank until she was standing over him covered in blood with the largest knife from her kitchen in hand.

She shudders there in her cell thinking back to him laying there lifeless. Her Tommy.

Her attorney tried to fight for her saying it was self-defense. She had been in the emergency room for falls and for “walking into doors” more times than she could count. The neighbors had called the police so many times when things had gotten really bad, on nights when she couldn’t stop screaming from the pain. She never filed charges though. She never admitted to the cops what Tommy was doing. Hell, she couldn’t even fully admit it to herself. This was the man she loved,after all, for her whole life. They’d been together since she was only 16.

But, the prosecutors contested self-defense. If she was really in danger, they said, she would have gotten out. If she was really being abused, she would have had the man thrown in jail. Why would anyone stay, they asked, if it was really as bad as her attorney made it sound. They painted her as a mooching nag that finally had enough when her husband was fired from yet another job and let him have it. The jury bought that version of things. Obviously, given her prison blues.

She stands there a moment longer, remembering. For a long time she was bitter about things, but that wasn’t going to change anything, so she learned to let it go like she used to let things slide with Tommy.

She loved that man—despite what she did. That’s what made her stay, part of the reason anyway. There was always a piece of her that could hear a song and remember the good times or look at him across the table and get a glimmer of the man he was before things changed.

That night, though… that night was the end of her hope. And, she guesses that spending the rest of her life in prison is better than the prison she was in.

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Hope you enjoyed it. I've really been focusing more and more on my fiction lately. Be sure, too, to check out all the other bloggers who linked up today to see how everyone has interpreted their words. Thanks for reading!!

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                                 Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                          Spatulas on Parade

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                        Stacy Sews and Schools

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com                      The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com                                   Battered Hope

http://eileensperpetuallybusy.blogspot.com/                    Eileen’s Perpetually Busy

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                             Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch                    Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.southernbellecharm.com                            Southern Belle Charm

http://singlemumplusone.blogspot.com                        Searching for Sanity

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com                                  Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com                             Climaxed

 http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com                       Evil Joy Speaks