His punch came out of nowhere.   

I thought I had more time before he came home.  That's why I had sat down at the kitchen table without thinking.   

My face crashed down on the wooden floor of the kitchen as the book flew out of my hands. 

Everything went black. 

I could still hear him yelling at me as his footsteps came closer and closer. 

Consciousness faded in and out as nausea overcame me and I vomited on the floor.  I knew that it would be worse for me because to him that showed weakness.     

Vomiting on the floor?  No, he would never do that.  Not in a million years.   

“You’re going to clean that up.  Every DAMN drop of it, boy!’   

His boot found its way into my side.  The kicks were without feeling, without remorse.  My body bent forward in a fetal position and I trembled in agony.   The vomit found itself on my face as I rocked back and forth. 

The cruel **** that I had just set off grabbed me by my hair and rubbed my face in it, pressing down on my head as he did so.   

When the pain became too unbearable my brain ordered my body to shut down.     

As I drifted into the black again I watched pages of the book he’d caught me reading come down towards my face. 

His hands ripped the pages out and threw them at me with anger and disbelief.    

“No son of mine is going to get caught up in this nonsense! That is forbidden in this house!  Don’t make this mistake again"!   

When he walked away he kicked me one last time, as if to make me understand he meant what he said.  When he stopped and paused in the kitchen doorway, the last thing he said sent the message home with a chill down my spine. 

 If I ever catch you reading this filth again….I will kill you”.

The words on one of the pages of the book he threw at me when he finally left comforted me.  I whispered them repeatedly while my racked body and mind fell into a dark abyss.  

"Trust....in the Lord, thy God......Trust....in the Lord, thy God......Trust....in the Lord, thy God......"