In the Grip Of Rage

I was eleven years old the night I was awakened by a woman's screams and the thud of a body slamming into the other side of my bedroom wall. That sound is distinct and sickening, etched into my auditory memory to this day. Anyone who has heard it knows what I mean. My father was again attacking my mother in a drunken rage. The ferocity of this attack and the stark terror it evoked in me seemed to cripple time, causing it to limp by in surrealistic slow motion. His voice was inaudible. I heard only the pleadings of a battered disheveled soul above a chorus of breaking furniture and glass.