Frank-hearted and happy

Four walls.

That's all she had to look at, along with a dirt floor and the ceiling. The door had a small window with a little door that could be opened from the outside. But that hadn't happened much in the time she'd been in here.

The time had passed but she had no clue as to the hour. It was the maddening part. The only escape was the promise that tomorrow she would be free. She thought about leaving as she laid on the cold ground. No bed. Not for a murderer. How had her short life came to this?

She remembered being a small child on the streets with her parents. Her father with only one shoe and the other socked foot. A hole in the fabric with his toe sticking out, getting wet and dirty on the cobbles. He held her hand as he walked her swiftly to a small cottage. Adult words were exchanged and her father crouched before her.

"You will have a better life, you don't understand but think on this one day and know we loved you," he had said.

Oh father if only you knew what a wretched thing was done despite your efforts. She had been taken to a mansion, amazing and warm inside. There was a fireplace in several rooms, all stocked with the wood, smelling of burnt pine and oak. The walls didn't leak moisture and were the prettiest of reds. The linens were all one piece with no holes. The food was all edible without tearing off moldy bits.

The work she did was nothing compared to the benefit of being welcomed into such a world. The Frankensteins had made her family, but none so open armed as dear sweet Elizabeth. Elizabeth who she could hear even now calling for her release. The walls were thick but the wails seeped through of her dear friend who believed in her innocence. It wasn't in vain. Justine felt some peace at knowing her friend believed her. But it was in vain because the judges didn't.

Whatever man or monster wreaked this plight upon her, that creature was no innocent. Lives were ruined. She fell asleep and dreamed of a man. This man was holding a child. The child grew too big to hold and the man slapped it. He slapped it because it was no longer innocent. It slapped him back.

The child watched the man take a goat and chop it's head off. The child did likewise to another goat. The man was the creator of violence making him the more guilty. The child was a victim of the man's folly and ignorance. The child was a victim but was no longer innocent. He was not innocent because he had shed blood. Justine was off to the side of the room in this dream watching them. She felt bad for the child, murderer that he was. She felt worse for the goats.

She woke up and thought the dream over in her mind. The child had become the monster. But being a monster had made him no less a victim of the man. Man is not innocent. No man is innocent. Only children and animals are pure of heart. The misunderstanding is that the second man is either the monster or the victim. But the two can be as one. One need not be innocent to be a victim. That's the missing piece. The man is guilty for slapping the child. The child is a victim. The child becomes a monster but it does not negate that he is a victim. It does not absolve the man's guilt. The monster did not deserve to be slapped. The child becoming a monster doubled the man's guilt, not erased it.

Justine understood that she was the second goat in her dream. But she understood the man who was to blame stood beside her dear friend as she headed to be hanged. Where was the monster? Where was the first victim? For they were one and the same.