The slamming of the keyboard overlaps with a particularly passionate jazz piano performance. 

Red ripe tomatoes pale in comparison to the crimson flush of pale cheeks. Blanched and flushed in turn, the skin creates its own abstract impression of blood borne rage.

“Arghh!” cries out the woman in a tribal call to war. 

“Ding!” calls out the electronic messenger. Another email from the enemy has arrived. 

Cheeks puff up with hot, angered air. Boiling emotions roll and bubble inside, threatening to pop out in heated words and passively passionately aggressive “sincerest thanks” typed out to the beat of spite’s sonata.

Needing to vent before the email is sent, the woman turns to her confidante. A pouring torrent of words mixed with a few insults flows forth into the basin of friendly concern.

“Don’t let them make you a mean person.”

The woman deflates, shot by her ally. Don’t be mean, always be nice, do not argue, always think thrice.

Perhaps the reaction was far too much for the enemy’s action. Her own faction did not support her to battle. 

The backspace is tapped in a sullen tone as the piano slows to a romantic stop. 

The email erased, the apology in place, with not a single note of anger portrayed.

The hot angry balloon puffing the woman up and giving her strength was popped and deflated. Her place was below, always below, serving and groveling, and kind.

A deepset hollowness filled her heart. Why can she never be allowed to fight? She is in the right, she knows. They’d all fall on their faces if she just stopped holding them up. But that’s not nice or kind.

‘But why must mine be the heart that bleeds?’ so the voice inside whispers, rattling the bars of its cage.