Eating Stones

5 min readAug 23, 2022

She really hated it, crying in front of them but she really couldn’t stop.

Her deep, deep fear had been reawakened, although it hadn’t been dormant for long.

As she sat there, even though she was surrounded by family, she never felt so alone. It was like being surrounded by strangers, even worse because strangers may have cared.

He saw her tears as something to be sneered at, it was a way she would attempt to manipulate him, something he had to crush in her, this sadness. Only his sadness, only ever expressed as cold silent anger, was allowed.

They sat there eating, oblivious, stone-hearted, probably wishing she would just shut up, stop the waterworks, her mother and brother.

He probably thought something else.

Without too much effort, he could reduce her to a tearful wreck. A part of him was thrilled at this power he had over her. How weak she was because she felt so much and still loved him though he was so cruel.

It was true, she did love him, but she feared him in equal measure.

The fear was that she knew he had the power of her life or death in his hands. He could walk away, leaving her completely alone, and leave her to die. He wouldn’t even have glanced back.

It was no exaggeration.

The worst thing about it, she knew that he knew the power that he had. Oh, how he relished it, and tortured her with it.

It wasn’t just her that felt that fear, her mother and brother felt it too.

But she felt it more keenly than them, she felt everything more keenly than them. It cut really deep, she knew his coldness to her wasn’t just a punishment, it was the truth, he was entirely cold to her. He felt nothing for her.

She and her brother had been away visiting some old school friends who had moved away. They had had a great time, she always felt relief at being away from him, and her mother. Like something released.

Her brother had done something which her friend and her brother had thought very funny. All she did was join the group laughter, and then reported it with great delight to her parents.

They didn’t think it was funny at all.

And then he…… she started to faulter in her story as she watched them. The pause got longer and longer, and she could feel something radiating from him and her mother. Something like hate- cold, and menacing.

He couldn’t even look at her as they loaded up the car. If no-one else was around, no-one to pretend to, he was silent with her.

She knew then that she had done something seriously wrong. They’d only arrived a few minutes ago, and already she’d done something wrong.

There was no way he would say anything in front of anyone else, ‘just wait til you get home’, was the unspoken threat. But she knew she wouldn’t have to wait that long.

As soon as they were in the car, for the first time ever, he broke his silence to give a long lecture on family. About how she was supposed to protect her little brother, look out for him.

But what about me? Who’s going to protect me? She asked herself as he continued.

She cried the whole time, tried to stifle the sobs, but they would still seep out. Hot tears and snot streaming, but she daren’t ask him for his handkerchief like she usually did.

Once the lecture was over, that wasn’t it.

Then came the endless silence. Not just from him but from her mother and brother too. And they were all trapped in a car for a few hours with each other.

No escape.

The only noises, the road noise, and her continued sobs, as quiet as she could be. Each one felt like it exploded from her, and made them hate her even more.

Red-eyed, with still more tears left, they stopped for lunch at a roadside café.

Eating was like eating stones, between the sniffles and tears she knew she had to eat something. If she didn’t, she would be accused of being ungrateful. That would be another crime to add to the list.

She had no comrade, no kin, no family, these people were not family.

Although she had a brother, he was so distant from her, she was merely someone he lived with. He was all for her mother.

This was another occasion when she wished that she would be swallowed up by the earth, or dead. Either would be a welcome relief from the torture she felt.

She can’t remember how long the silent treatment lasted. She knew it was a long time, because of the nature of her crime, of not standing up for family, not putting them first.

It was all about family he had said.

But what he really meant was, it’s all about him. He was the sun around which the other planets of the family revolved.

If he was in a good mood, so was everyone else. For a while, or even just a moment, everyone could breathe.

When he was in a bad mood, it poisoned everyone and everything, even the very bricks of the house. Everything absorbed it, took it in. It didn’t just follow him like a black storm cloud, he would leave it behind, darkness like soot.

Her brother was ignoring her too, he had been hurt by her laughter, but she didn’t realise she was wrong. She was sorry for that.

Mother, too, was giving her the silent treatment because she’d dared to hurt her little boy, her blue-eyed boy.

In not one of them was even the trace of softness to her. They all watched her sadness, her distress with complete indifference, as one would watch rain sliding down a window. She was nothing to them.

Perhaps someone in the roadside café looked at her with pity, or sadness, she didn’t know. A part of her hoped that there was someone, even a complete stranger who would have looked at her with compassion or empathy.

Her family were shells of people, they looked human on the outside, but that’s all that they had in common with humans.

Inside, there was nothing.

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