"BY THE TIME IT GETS DARK"
"ELYSE WILL BE IN THE LIGHT"
BY THE TIME IT GETS DARK
STEPPING INTO THE LIGHT
MY TYPO IN THE HEADING IS TIME LEFT OUT OF THE TITLE WAS A LAST-MINUTE CHANGE. READ ON. ENJOY.
This is a story I wrote 24 years ago. I thought about how society has changed between the 1950s and 2024. I choose 2024. I do not want to go back to being a second-class citizen. The story is about domestic violence. In the 1950s an abused woman could not divorce her husband. The woman had no rights. I choose 2024.
WE ARE NOT GOING BACK!
I am presenting this story as written 24 years ago with revisions of certain sentences or words. I wanted to keep the idea flowing throughout the original writing of the story.
All characters are fictional and in no way meant to reflect on any person.
I have considered the falling and the upgoing of the abused. The abuser wants the abused to stay down to relish his statements about how she cannot do anything in the industry without him. He calls her a makeup artist whore. He tells people the reason that he beat her up was because he caught her in bed with another guy. This is a lie. Elyse hates Paul.
This woman, this man, why fight?
Elyse hates him after the truth comes out about his lies and gossip.
You hit.
You scream,
“ELYSE, I HATE YOU!”
The universe delivers the truth. The truth will reign.
Love is patient and kind.
This is a story about not just two people but other people who are in the control of an individual who wants to control another’s life. The controlling person is all irritable and dreams up lies about the other individual to save themselves from ridicule or to not reveal the truth. Liars are a dime a dozen in the controlling fields of these players who continue to tell lies about the person they wanted to control. They pick on strong women who have their life together and then they tear them down to control them, so they want walk’ away, but they fly away like a butterfly. Elyse’s universe is all about truth. She had flown away from Paul.
The characters in this story are truth, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Elyse is the abused woman. Paul is the abuser. The truth will prevail, and judgement will weave a web of lies enveloping the abuser.
Paul yells at Elyse, “You cannot talk about your kid!” Then he beats her and kicks her shortly after moving in together. Paul tells her he believes that a child born with another man should ‘be thrown’ away.
Paul is a sad existence since he is a former child molester and rapist. Elyse was shown police records by her North Hollywood detective, proving his conviction as a rapist and child molester in his former years on drugs. Elyse did not know that about him when they met. She found out after he beat her up at the end of their ten-year romance.
Now Elyse is no longer naïve to his psychological shifting of controlling her brain.
She escapes with no money, but her faith helps her remain focused to begin her life again.
Elyse is happy to be alive and to whom she is today.
Paul, her abuser, wanted to kill her the night he kicked her and sent her to the hospital. There are no boundaries nor excuses in this situation. He will attack again. Manic depressive and for himself only and what he can take from others is his work of art. This type of individual has no boundaries of psychological defense mechanisms.
Paul had thrown all her psychology books away because he did not want her to know about his strange narcissistic criminal personality.
This is a story about love, hate, and domestic violence of pain of the hurtful of the heart after the event.
So many tears of so many years together lost now to ‘be buried’ forever.
This is a short story I wrote 24 years ago. I had planned to develop it into a movie, but plans fell through, and the decade took me in other directions.
This story is dedicated to all persons of domestic violence of verbal abuse and tempers exploding of jealous & narcissistic partners who suppress and force their partners into their control to scare them into submission.
The violence is imbedded into the abusers’ brains from their family methods of control and not talking about experiences, a non-expression of SHHH! SHHH!
THE FINALE!
Manic depression of the scenario will end! Elyse is tired of the put downs and Paul’s controlling brain. The man yells! The man kicks! The lady is expressive and closes the door forever more in Paul’s face.
That is a story I dedicate now to all, especially women in 2024 because our rights are being trampled’ on. Laws are being created’ to squash women, put them back in the kitchen rattling pots and pans and pregnant. If Maga wins Project 2025 will demand nationwide abortion ban. They want to control women’s bodies. Back in the 50s a woman could not buy a house or car without her husband. If her husband beat her up, she had to submit and apologize to him as she had no rights as a second-class citizen. He could beat her, and she could not leave him. The other fifties thing was the only marriage was between a man and a woman and no birth control.
Now in 2024 there are straight and gay marriages and single parents and let us keep it that way.
So, Elyse is happy now. I will finish the book one day.
“‘til then my compadres, amigas, amigos
VIVA THE TRUTH!”
Written by
VICKI LAWANA TRUSSELLI
WRITTEN 2000
REVISIONS AUGUST 22, 2024
"BY THE TIME IT GETS DARK" BY SANDY DENNY
About the Creator
Vicki Lawana Trusselli
Welcome to My Portal
I am a storyteller. This is where memory meets mysticism, music, multi-media, video, paranormal, rebellion, art, and life.
I nursing, business, & journalism in college. I worked in the film & music industry in LA, CA.
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Comments (1)
Pretty intense story, Vicki. It is so unfortunate that in the United States women were treated so poorly and really not so long ago. My mom was one of the early trendsetters of independent women. The summer of 1960 she actually went and divorced her husband. She wasn't going to stand for someone who bossed her around like she was a child. She had a job in an industry that mostly hired men and she worked her way up to becoming an engineer in the late 1960s. She did this without a college degree. How did my mom become an engineer without a college education during a time when women were treated as second class citizens? She did it by studying and learning her craft and was diligent in her job and becoming the best in the field that she worked in. She made it a point to get a long with everybody she worked with - both men and women. She was very well respected. She put a lot of hard work into learning her job. She didn't complain. She made the best out of every and all situations. I am so proud of my mom. I always talk about her and I write about her a lot. You can do a search for Isabel Rios here on Vocal and you should find several stories I've written about her. She did end up a remarrying it after about 4 years of being divorced. The second marriage lasted 53 years until his passing in 2017. Thank you for sharing your story. Women have come a long way and as a society we should all be proud of that and move forward with poise and gratitude that the hard work and dedication of women like my mom has paved the way for women today. As for Project 2025, yes that is some horrible stuff. But we must move forward and not let these negatives tear us down. We need to proceed with confidence and intelligence in knowing that we are going to win this mindset of opposing ideologies. It's going to be a rough road ahead but we can do this!