Gia C. Manalio www.lifeissurreal.com She Came Back an Angel (Based on Pat Barker’s Blow Your House Down) I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down. —The Big Bad Wolf The paper said Kath’s gone now but she left us a long time ago downing shot after shot at the bar which she never had a dime for, although she was always paying. Yeah, it’s a hard life and it’s ugly but you do what you have to do and it beats the long hours in the factory where men do the killing, but women do the work standing in the blood and guts of headless chickens. Just get in the car and think about nothing except the jacket you’ll buy your son and the dress for your daughter. Don’t close your eyes, but don’t ever look in five minutes, it’ll be over with this one. That’s what Kath thought. Just another car out by the viaduct; another man who fought with his wife and hated his life and was looking for an anonymous quickie. No small talk just The talk and the deal made. A deal with the devil this time. Or maybe it was God who took her away. And gave her a short stay in purgatory, which looked like an abandoned house, where a knife wielding man pierced her inside and out, collecting the last of her due. HE must have thought she had a long enough stay in her Hell on Earth and it was her time to come home. And now Kath is above us strips of paper pasted onto a large board capture the image of a human being, piece by piece over layers already forgotten. Her open eyes watch over us like an angel’s. Lit by headlights, she’s in the spotlight now. A real face, a martyr, a reason for the everyday people to care. Until putting up a Guiness ad proves more profitable.