You granted your callous mistress the right to infiltrate our lives. My childhood memories are defiled by her meddlesome intrusion. You became her marionette, her absurd little dancing fool. I watched you; a once proud, mountain of a man, reduced to a lowly pebble.
You gave all you possessed in life to appease her constant hunger. We were merely afforded the scraps she left of your love, attention, and time. I can remember the contempt my mother endured every day for what you deemed an unforgivable sin: She chose to keep fighting for you.
You didn’t just defeat her once, that would have been too merciful. You subdued her inner essence, strangling it into submission. I witnessed my mother dwindle into a thin, crumbling husk while you roamed in blissful freedom, never facing the aftermath.
There was never any real contest, family was expendable. You will never have my forgiveness for choosing her over your blood and blindly following her down that path of destruction. I hope before you left this realm, you realized all you had lost in the name of your pale harlot, depraved goddess, and one love: Cocaine.
This 192 word monologue is for the latest round of the Trifecta writing Challenge. This week they are looking for 33 – 333 word stories/poems that feature the word PATH. You must use the third definition of path as bolded below:
PATH
1: a trodden way
2: a track specially constructed for a particular use
3a : course, route
b : a way of life, conduct, or thought
Then you just pen something spectacular with that word using that particular meaning, go to the trifecta website and link up. It’s that simple. This is a great prompt and I suggest giving it a go. It’s easy to think of something to do with a path. After all, we’ve all gone down them.
When I first started reading, I thought it was real for a moment. Shocking.
This gave me goosebumps…
Glad you liked it 😉
Yeah. Dealing with a drug addict is the same as dealing with a person whose become addicted to the dopamine rush they get from cheating. Both have their heads up their behinds, both are willing to drop their families for their fix, and both are pretty shameless.
What great writing. I was sucked in and was surprised by the unexpected ending. I just LOVED this! Excellent.
Glad you loved it. I love doing the twist endings. They make writing more fun for me.
Very clever!!! Surprised by the ending, really packed a punch
“Very clever” Nah, not really. I just found a parallel and ran with it. Glad it took you by surprise though. That’s exactly what I was hoping for. 🙂
yep..but you are still very clever 🙂
Yes! The expendable family…leading up to the delectable last lines…cocaine! Brilliantly done. ‘pale harlot, depraved goddess…’ really good..
‘pale harlot, depraved goddess…’ hahaha… yeah, I got a bit carried away there, I had to reign it in and cut out a bunch of other metaphors. Thanks for reading 🙂
very well done
Compliment much appreciated. 🙂
Great ending.
Thanks!
A really brilliant piece of writing, enjoyed it very much!! 😀
Why thank you, suzy 🙂 I’m happy you enjoyed it so much.
What a great, really great example of personification. I totally fell for it and thought that it was a woman right until the last word.
“What a great, really great example of personification.” Thanks. For some reason, in this instance, it came really easy for me. Most of the time I have a bit of trouble with this stuff but in this instance it all just kind of fit together.
An apt look at addiction. Well done!
Thank you Joe 🙂
Fantastic post, you depicted the feelings and the reality so very well.
It’s a reality that I have many years of experience with so it was actually none too hard to put those thoughts to paper (or in this case word processor).
This is extremely powerful and very real. Terrific writing.
“Terrific writing.” Thanks so much. It’s a big compliment coming from an awesome writer like yourself 😉
Thank you! 🙂
I also thought it was a woman until the end. Then I read it again and saw that you chose your words so carefully that it was ‘obvious’ once the mistress was known. Very memorable write!
“you chose your words so carefully that it was ‘obvious’ once the mistress was known.” I am so happy you so those little touches. Thanks for reading!
it’s a fantastic ending and i love your title! wonderful choice of words..cleverly done 🙂
I chose my words very carefully so they would fit right once the switch came at the end 🙂 Thanks for reading!
Love the “unforgiveable sin” of continuing to fight for him — it says so much about the terrible nature of addiction.
Yeah, addiction makes you forget about all the important things in life. So sad.
Hmm…it looks like my comment disappeared, but I originally said that this was a great treatment of addiction (no pun intended). I really thought the mistress referred to a woman.
That sucks your comment disappeared. I checked my spam folder to see if it had fallen into it for some weird reason (These programs can glitch at times) but nada. I hope that doesn’t happen often. I’m glad that you enjoyed the monologue. 🙂
Nice voice in this piece – the anger is palpable, but seems restrained (by force maybe) because of the diction. The turn at the end, of course, was also really cool.
Yeah, if I went into unrestrained anger territory with this one I don’t think it would be fitting for anyone to read. Glad you enjoyed it!
Great title, great twist. Addiction and obsession have a very fine line between them. Nice writing.
“Addiction and obsession have a very fine line between them.” I agree. They could be twins.
Strong first paragraph to start, after knowing the mistress… ‘dancing fool’… could not be a better description.
I rather like that description myself 😉
Heartbreaking. Not just the addiction, but the inability to forgive. That is something that sticks with you forever.
True. I simply can’t forgive those who aren’t sorry. They don’t deserve forgiveness.
Some beautiful phrasing here, and really lovely images – if one can say that in the context of addiction.
Honestly, I think with the right words you can make almost anything sound better, no matter how morbid. Thanks for the compliment.
Wow. Nicely written. Nice twist.
Thank you. I try 😉
Brilliant and heart wrenching. Drugs are a terrible epidemic, ruins millions. Well told Muse.
Why thank you. I agree that addiction is a horrible thing. I have seen it ruin far too many lives and families.
while the story is shocking, with a twist in the end that I never expected; the writing is simply brilliant. Every line is exceptional!
You are too kind. All these compliments are going to give me a swelled head. Pretty soon I am going to start talking about myself in third person and have theme music play as I walk down the street.
Lol
Go, O. Henry! Making the cocaine hungry, and her “collateral” the scraps… brilliant.
Thanks!
Really good stuff. Love the approach you took
I’m happy with the results of this writing experiment too.
Whoa, and here I thought it was about a divorce and remarriage. Great job!
A wonderful piece of writing. It flowed beautifully with some great imagery. I particularly liked, “I watched you; a once proud, mountain of a man, reduced to a lowly pebble.” This spoke volumes.
Thanks for a great read.
and thank you, Mike, for taking the time to read and comment 🙂
I guessed who the ‘pale’ mistress was about halfway through. Well done!!
Thanks 🙂
Nice! Dripping anger – something even deeper, disdain? – came through loud and clear.
Disdain for certain. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment!
When you read something and immediately say “damn it all I wish I’d done this!” then, yeah.
I love the pacing, how you started with palpable, tangible rage. And ending with teh coke was just dark and badass.
I loved it.
Glad you like ending dark because, well, just about everything I do ends dark. 😉
me too…that’s good writing
“There was never any real contest, family was expendable. “-what a terrible & helpless feeling that must be for the family of an addict!Brilliant piece with dark shades & a great twist at the end.Loved it:-)
It is a terrible feeling. You feel like you are nothing at all to your own parent. Thanks for taking the time to comment 🙂
Must be-being unwanted or unloved always is-but if it is by someone who brought you into this world-it must be the worst!Great writing ,once again:-)
Really powerful; personifying cocaine as a mistress – brilliant.
Thank you 🙂
This is incredibly sad, but a very real part of many people’s lives. This was especially well written.
Yeah, it’s a difficult thing to live through. Glad you found it well written. I took a painstaking amount of time trying to make sure the words fit just right.
Brilliant!
You compliment is much appreciated.
Painfully raw emotion, great work.
Believe it or not, that emotion is refined, if I had used raw emotion, I would not have had a readable story to present.
Wow, this is amazing. Took my breath away for a second at the end. Nice work!
“Took my breath away for a second at the end. ” Glad the ending had that kind of impact. It means I did something right with this piece 🙂
Powerful writing.
Thank you 🙂