when you were my father

freeing you

"So, how do you get out of here?" I ask him, breaking our hug after it went on for what seemed like forever. But it was a good forever.

"I don't actually know."

"What do you mean?"

"When I first came here right after I died, I learned all that I know now. All I know is that to successfully move on from the living you have to free yourself from every bad thing that happened while you were living. Those things will drag you down, while getting rid of them will raise you up."

"Oh, so you freed yourself of those memories that I witnessed."

"Yes, I guess. Maybe. What do you mean? Wait, oh, does this have to do with why you know all of those memories of mine?"

"Oh... yeah it does. It's going to sound kind of crazy and it's confusing, are you okay with that?"

"Yes,"

"Alright, so this one day I was coming home from school and I saw this house, which was a really ratty house and I can't see anyone wanting to live in it, and I decided to go inside to see what was going on with it since I'd never seen it before. It was creepy, but empty. I headed into the back yard where there was a shed. I went inside the shed... and you know what happened. It was like I was living someone else's life while I was there, and now that I think about it, it was you that I was seeing the house and the shed through. This happened many times, with each of the memories I described."

"So, each of those happened after I let go of a memory. But, how?"

"I don't know, if I did I'd tell you."

"Right, so I guess I'm still here because there's still something left that I need to lose before I can leave completely."

"That's what I think too, do you have any more traumatic memories?"

"Not that I know of, I made sure to get rid of them the best that I could."

"Then I really don't know, maybe-"

Doubling over, I feel like screaming in pain.

A million knives.

High voltage electricity.

A club to my skull.

The pain of all those and more, any seconds longer and I'd collapse.

Just as soon as it came, the pain left, leaving me hunched over my whole body tingling.

"KAMI! What's wrong?" My dad called, grabbing me, concerned.

"It hurt, it hurt so bad." I cried into his shoulder, the pain was gone but I still felt it inside.

"What hurt?"

"Everything,"

"But it's gone now?"

"Yes,"

"Good," I try to catch my breath, I lean into him. "It's okay, it's over now. Don't worry, it'll be okay." He strokes my hair, trying to calm me down. I close my eyes, trying to shut all the pain out.

********************

"It hurts so bad!" Mai screams, tears filling her eyes. Blood rushes out of from the inside of her foot, she's soaking wet with water which only amplifies the red. She can't be older than 8, and hasn't ever felt any pain this bad.

She sits on the sand at a man-made beach, sand and salt water cover her body showing that she's been swimming. Brian runs over in his swim trunks, seeing that his daughter's unhappy.

"Are you okay?" Worry fills his eyes, but he tries to remain calm and collected for her.

"No! It hurts really bad!" Clutching her foot, she squeezes her eyes shut.

"Your foot?" Mai just nods. "Alright, well let's go to the doctor and then it'll get better, okay?"

"Nooo... they'll do stitches and it'll hurt more."

"It'll only hurt for a minute, unlike this which will hurt an even longer time if you don't get any help. So, let me help you over to the car." Despite his kind and calm words, Mai shakes her head violently, against the idea in fear of stitches. "Please, I'll be with you the whole time and once we're done I'll let you get one of those giant lollipops you saw at the entrance to the hotel, sound good?"

"Okay," He picks her up in his arms, wrapping a towel around her foot. Tears run down her wet face as she rests her head on his shoulder.

"It'll be okay, it'll be okay. It will get better." Brian whispers in her ear, trying to comfort his distraught daughter. "Don't worry, it'll be okay."

********************

"It'll be okay."

I stop crying and my breathing normalizes, looking up into my dad's eyes. "Thank you,"

"You're welcome, it's okay, don't worry. I've got you." He lets me fully calm down before continuing, "What happened?"

"I don't know, all of the sudden everything hurt worse than anything's ever hurt before. Like I was about to explode. But it's gone now, we don't need to worry."

"I think we do need to worry, there's probably a reason it happened and if we don't figure out what it is it could happen again."

"I guess... But what's really important is getting you through here and out to the beyond."

"Don't worry about me, you weren't planned to come so I'm guessing I don't need you."

His words really hurt me, more than you'd think. "...I don't need you." I hadn't thought about this, but of course he doesn't. I'm not supposed to be here.

"Oh... I didn't mean it like..."

"Huh? Oh, it's fine. You're actually quite right, you don't need me. I'm not supposed to be here, so just go ahead and move on, while I'll go get out of here." I walk away from him, with no objective besides getting back where I belong.