Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-5101683-20181016072842

Me again.

His Son
Maybe if he were someone else, someone hard and ashamed of himself, like his own father had been, his son would be different. He thought about it sometimes when his son came home and stammered that he was doing fine, when he so obviously lied.

He knew his son, knew him inside and out, but sometimes he could not understand why he continued to shuffle along his clockwork path. How long had they played this game of not telling grades? How long would it go on?

His son, who was almost an adult, still acted like a scared child in front of him. He couldn't fix it.

But he had to do other things, so he left his son be. There was no reason to fret, what with important business going around. He had a meeting at 3AM and needed to go to sleep.

The son was there, doing his homework while listening to his father sleep. His mind was filled with all the videos he had watched instead of doing homework. He wasn't really afraid for his future, but he didn't know why not.

He heard his father snoring. It sounded like he was blowing his nose while turning into a giant cat. Still, he had become used to it. It did not bother him any longer.

His father would sometimes stop snoring, and then he would worry. He didn't want to be afraid that his father would become sad at seeing him again.

He didn't know what was making him do this kind of thing.

He realized he hadn't heard anything for 20 seconds.

The father was happy in his life. The sun was smiling, the air was sweet. He prayed for long periods of time. This was how he had lived his life, and his son did not live this way.

He didn't begrudge his son for this. He wanted his son to succeed, because he felt that his son was capable of something at the very least.

Was that too much to ask? For his son to do a thing? Anything?

The son did nothing. The son simply waited while the father was silent.

He wondered whether his father had woken up. He did not know his father as his father knew him, so he did not really understand that his father was human. But he knew some things, and one of those was that his father did not silently wake up. If the bed was not making noise, his father was still asleep and he should have still been snoring.

He did not want to know that his father was choking. He wanted to believe that his father was simply being lazy, even though that would not make sense, because it was kind.

He felt lighter every second, because the more he sat the less he had to pay attention to what his father was and was not doing. He almost went off of Youtube, which he had somehow started watching instead of doing his homework, but he didn't.

The son could have leaped out of his chair. The son could have given a damn, couldn't he, that his pop was doing something unusual.

Once, when he had been young, he had closed his father's nose to stop his snoring. It had been stupid, but at least he had done it.

What was he afraid of now? Was he afraid that his father, the same father who loved him and forgave, would be mad at him for checking on him?

No, no. It was simple, so simple that he snickered. If his father woke up, then he would have to face the fact that he was watching Youtube videos. Now he was in the middle phase, the phase between promising not to sin and being forced to acknowledge that he had sinned.

What was that called again? I know, and most likely you know, and he knew, but he wanted to forget, like some people forget their house when they drink until it's too late.

His father was in the middle phase between life and death. He could not wake up as he choked on his tongue, as his beleaguered heart began to stop. There was no end to the madness; how could there be?

His subconscious knew that his son was in there, that even though the person lied, the person was his son, and his son would help him when he died, not leave him to choke.

His son was not a monster. His son was not a villain.

His son believed that he was the villain in the story.

It made the most sense. Perhaps he was the one choking his own father in order to prostate himself to the computer just a little while longer.

There was some extent to which he felt remorse, but he didn't feel enough. He had never known life without a mother or father, so there was really no way for him to fathom losing a parent.

Sometimes, he wondered if the harsh light of his computer had been what had erased his soul, or if he'd just never had one.

The father would live to see the next day, not because of his son, but because of himself.

He had woken up to see his son towering over him, only to see him back away silently. He had wondered whether or not to call to his son, to ask him why exactly he had come, but he saw his son's face, filled with fear, and he did not.

He still believed in his son.

The son knew that what he had done was nothing.

The son could not understand, and the son still cannot understand, because he willed his father dead and his father was far stronger.

Something had gone terribly wrong. 