A Lady's Thoughts

By Catherine Bloom

The glass is broken.

The shards strewn about the floor around the table.

I don’t even recall how it happened; but I know I should clean it up so no one gets hurt or at least have someone do it for me. Still another part, a stronger part, wants to simply grind the shards into the carpet with my boot heel.

It’s always been like this. Having dual opinions about everything that is. Even as a child; once my mother ordered me to clean the kitchen when I wanted to go outside.

I was so upset, but I didn’t tell her, I simply bit back my anger and cleaned up the kitchen. By the time I finished it was dark and I couldn’t go out.

I was so angry.

She went out that night, with one of her seemingly million gentleman friends, and I found myself in the kitchen after she left. I was still angry about not being about to go outside and at my Mother in general for not being able to keep to one man, not even my Father.

The next thing I knew I was holding a frying pan in my hand and the kitchen was completely destroyed. For a second I wondered who had broken in and done such a terrible thing, but then I noticed all my mother’s favorite wine glasses shattered and blood on my hands.

I cleaned up as quickly as I could, hiding the broken pieces of glass, even though the part of me that had done it wanted Mother to see the damage. I then ran up to my room and washed my hands, the blood flowing like a river from the multiple cuts. I wrapped them and pretended to be asleep when she got home.

She never asked me where the glasses were, though I know she searched for them endlessly. Part of me felt bad, but the other part felt vindicated.

A week later my Mother died in a terrorist bombing at one of her parties. I was sent to live with my old aunt in a large lonely estate. I felt so sad and lonely, but again that part was glad that Mother no longer had a hold on us. Slowly that part was beginning to run my life.

My aunt forced me to wear glasses, something my Mother never did, since a lady did not obscure her beauty by calling attention to her imperfections.

That was the day something inside me snapped.

The strong part of me took control, the part that destroyed my Mother’s favorite wine glasses, the part that had no sorrow about Mother’s death.

I worked to become strong, stronger, so no one could hurt me or tell me what to do. The strong part of me was in complete control, with the weak, ladylike, part simply hiding somewhere.

Then I met him.

His name was Treize and he was the type of gentleman my Mother constantly played with. I paid little attention to him at first, other than he was my commanding officer. Then I realized he had ambitions that I could see and believe in.

So I began to serve him loyally and the lady in me began to peer through my hard exterior, coached by his delusions of elegance and ladylikeness.

So my two minds returned.

And I still cannot decide whether or not the pick up the glass pieces or grind them into the ground. I guess two minds aren’t better than one after all.