There is a wonderful little town called hope, where the parishioners dutifully elected their own God-fearing pope, a church of stone, a navy blue phone, no person there kept their business unknown, watched by day, asleep at night, the barbers cat was the scariest creature, he only attacked in fright.
The town was safe with a happy refrain yet, after this evening things could never be the same, a young girl, fifteen years of age disappeared, never seen again, a young man they arrested when she went missing, the week before they were seen together kissing.
The story leads us to thirty years in the future, Aimee Jay James was found dead by the river, forty five years of age, recognised by her DNA the same girl that disappeared on that fateful day, Joseph the boy was hung in sight of an angry lynch mob who were regretfully, not right, Joseph died that dreadful night he had no willing cause to put up a fight except in his head they said he wasn’t right.
The truth is sad yet true to aim, Aimee jay James stepfather was the one to blame, he hid her in a cavern that he meticulously built, lining it with brick walls, no windows, no guilt, imprisoned as a slave for thirty years, she had been a captive ever since, without any tears, beat and abused then filled with drugs, kept Aimee undernourished without food, she had water in an old white jug using it to fill her cold metal mug.
Along came the spring, her captor weakened and sick, the long hard winter had taken the strength on his grip, he entered the prison, said to Aimee Jay “sorry you have not been fed” the old man placed the shiny black pistol to his head, he pulled the trigger, of course he was dead, Aimee gathered her things, she walked away from hell, frightened of her new found freedom, out in the wild, as a new born child, it was like hearing for the first time, the birds, the trees, the flowing river, the buzz of the bees.
As Aimee Jay kept walking on, legs about to collapse, her mind in the woods, sick to the stomach, due to lack of food, without the controlling drugs that kept her in a calming mood, she glanced at the river, then the fish within, she was hungry and very thin, Aimee felt so tired, she was in need of a sleep, she continued two kilometres then fell from her feet, rest was the requirement she needed forever, no life at all with the struggles of tether, they buried Aimee Jay James at the river she lay, beside beautiful Azaleas that blossomed in May.