A Razor and a Toothbrush

My name is Howard Lance. My son has requested that I post this story and being the way he is I am inclined to do it unless I want him to throw fits non-stop. See my son...he has autism. I am not ashamed and nor is he but sometimes things just don't go well. The way his condition makes him, well let's just say that thing must go his way exactly or he won't be such a happy camper. Every morning I prepare his breakfast and place his hygiene utensils on the sink precisely were thy go every morning. His toothbrush goes 6 inches next to his razor and to the left. Always the left. My son insists that he shaves being the neat freak that he is despite him only being 15 and only have slight peach fuzz. Now that I have explained the type of circumstances the events happened under let me begin to tell of the said events. I awoke at 6:00

I got dressed and made my way into me and my son's shared bathroom and arranged his razor and toothbrush like every morning. This fucking morning. This fucking morning I was just a little hungover. This fucking morning I did what I always did quickly because I would have to take a shower to try and cover up and treat my hangover. The boys had made me go out with them last night. My psychiatrist says you find certain groups or others to blame after these things happen. I don't blame the boys if you are wandering. After I did all this hoped in my shower and turned on the hot water. I stayed in there for maybe 15 minutes before my son entered the bathroom. We weren't the type of family that was afraid of seeing each other naked but to respect my son's previously stated wishes I had recently bought a shower curtain that wasn't translucent. Maybe if it had been translucent everything would be alright now. Maybes are all I have left. I continued to bathe and paid no attention to the scrubbing noise that was coming from the outside of the shower. In my state if being I cast the noise aside as my son just brushing his teeth. So fucking stupid. Next came a very unusual sound as I was finishing up my shower.

I tell myself it wasn't pained but as I reflect on this I know better.  Our bathroom was rather large and I had made sure of this knowing we would be sharing it. The distance from the shower to the sink was far enough for me to not see what was happening to my son but it was still close enough for me to hear the odd sounds as I dried off. The steam from the shower had now fogged up the memory and I started to remember my routine knowing I would soon have to get back to it. Then my mind came up at the moment when I would put my sons toothbrush and razor on the sink in their exact spots for him to use. The realization hit me that this morning I had been so hungover I swapped the locations of the razor and the toothbrush. A sudden panicked held me fast as I rushed to the sink. I don't remember the next bits very fondly because I have tried as hard as I can to erase them from my mind. There was blood. There was so much blood, there was more blood than my very mind could possibly fathom could fit into such a young, autistic human body, the likes of which I had probably just man-slaughtered with my utter foolishness. I found him on the floor; his mouth was torn to shreds down to the bone, his tongue was lying several feet away from his body which was drained off all color. The area around him was the opposite, it being painted in the color dark red which only hours later after running the events through my mind did I understand to be blood. I of course took him to the hospital but even then I knew there was no hope. All of this happened so many years ago but every morning I put my toothbrush 6 inches to the left of my razor. Last night I got drunk and this morning I am hungover remembering the events that led to where I am now. Also this morning I decided to place my razor to the left instead. Right now I am typing this lyin on the bathrom flor and til now i have been able to type this all pefectly wel. But I think now my blood is begin to pooll up around my legs and i am seein litte red lines under all my words. the color of those lines. they look just like his bllod did. his name was sam and i killled him. i killed my liittle sammys. its all alrightt now thou. i coming sam. im comin sammy. imcomin.