RE: Weekend Freewrite -2/15/2020 - Single Prompt Option CONTINUATION: filthy rich
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Wow! That's brilliant! What a pleasure to read. And yes, it resolves all the doubts about her motivations. She wanted to do it for a long time but didn't have a chance. So when the chance revealed itself she took it. Great Work!
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Thank you ... I did leave it a bit open to interpretation, but laid out the entire gamut from murder to accident so that everyone can reach their own conclusions!
Really? With this amount of money art stake and being that abused. People kill for much smaller amounts. I think the life of a regular Joe worth not more than $300 )))
You're right on that ... I had a relative who told me a man she had known had been killed over a dime!
However, the prompt preceded me adding a few billion to the pot, and in the prompt, the woman is still talking seriously about having signed up to make sure he was happy ... I judged that there was some sincerity there, because one can be manipulated and abused to the point that one no longer thinks of one's self as anything but someone's supply -- love and loyalty warped by pain and fear of the future. It is one of the reasons abusive situations often continue for so long. If someone is broken like that, then the money doesn't matter UNLESS, subconsciously, somewhere in there, the person has a strong core, and that core eventually is pressured too much. Remember how Captain Hamilton observed there was a "spark" in Mrs. Howard? Add to that an opportunity, and ... well, you know what happened!
Sure thing. Your narrative is absolutely brilliant. You showed so many angles. For policemen, their suspicions weren't conclusive to even charge her and bring this case to a trial. Hower to the reader you've given much more information than to a policeman. The reader sees the character from inside and can see how she was subjected to years-long psychological abuse and how she was ready in her mind - only waiting for the opportunity. When the opportunity came she took it. Her plan and the execution were so brilliant that as we say in Russian a "mosquito wouldn't be able to squeeze its nose" into the armоr of her alibi. )))
You've also right about her strong core. I think the situations similar to this one exist and most of the time don't end up in murder simply because an abused person doesn't have a strong core and either cannot step over a moral boundary or even more ofter is afraid that she won't be able to go through with it.
Often it is the fear ... abusers work hard to deny their victims the ability to see a future beyond the abuser. Cult leaders do this also, and slave owners in the U.S. had an extensive system to make my ancestors by the millions feel this way also. There are certain things that can be done to any human being ... but what the abuser cannot know in advance is whether or not certain individuals have a core that is too strong to perpetually be in that position and not realize: eventually, that kind of person will begin to see a future without the abuser, whether that turns out being a Mrs. Harriet Tubman, a Mr. Robert Smalls, or a Mrs. Hugh Howard (of which, in my own family, there were TWO in the last century). Methods vary ... but we are made such that one person may not assume the place of God over another forever. The person who tries may not be ready for the consequences when enough is enough!
Wow! That's interesting. You are a descendant of an amazing family. It's comforting to realize that a human spirit could be so strong that even horrible conditions cannot bend them into spiritual submission!
Taking Ms. Harriet Tubman's estimation -- when speaking of freeing 300 slaves, she said, "I could have freed a thousand, had they known they were slaves" -- as a bar, I go with the idea that three out of every ten people have that "strong core," and if they are able to move, then they could lead some out from the remaining seven out of 10 ... hope, even though the math says that if the beatdown is done well enough, a majority will not recover... but it doesn't take a majority to change things ...
ADDENDUM: The two women were somewhat distant in-laws to me ... by the time I came along, their new husbands from my family were both happily married, well-informed, and VERY careful...
The addendum is a bit too complex for my understanding.
What do you imply by them being "well-informed, and VERY careful..." About what? Being careful about demanding the peanut butter sandwich from their spouses? )))
You DID understand exactly ... they knew what happened and were CAREFUL not to be abusive!
Ahahaha...
It reminded me of one science fiction story, where the young journalist went somewhere to the boonies to track down a witch. He found her. It was a young gal all dirty and smelly. But he was explained that in order for her to do some black magic she should be frustrated.
What he did was - he put her in a hotel where she took a shower and turned out to be very pretty. Then he fed her in a restaurant, took her to the department store and bought her new stylish clothes. And when he saw she fell in love with him, he told her that she has the same size as his fiance and all these clothes are bought for his fiance.
He calculated correctly. The gal became furious and started showing wonders of black magic. The guy got very scared for his very life and promised her to marry her. The story ends with the following sentence (I am paraphrasing translating from a translation)
"Strangely enough, the groom was happy. But who cares about him. More importantly, the bride was happy!"
)))
RIGHT...