Mom was screaming again. The agonizing, painful screeches that left the lonely woman who had raised me and given me my life felt petrifying, if not scary.
Dad was as he always is, and always will be: looking down to his silver wrist watch every minute of every hour of every day, tapping his foot relentlessly as if he was always late, which, as far as I knew, was never the case, and undermining everything. Gaslighting every one. Always worried about what next. How to make the most out of everything. Trying his best to be the best he could be tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I was playing with blocks.
The nurse came in. She had tummy rolls that made her clothes seem tighter than they were, a tiny pony tail that held hardly any hair, and a tired, nullified look to her baggy, grey eyes. She held in her hand some papers.
"Here you have it sir."
"About time." Dad said, grudgy.
"Now, just so you know, I ended up not calling social security, because I know this is a sensitive time for you and your son, but do bear in mind I will not tolerate the same level of disrespect and stoicism again. Do we understand each other?" She said, recoiling her papers from the grasp of an impatient man.
"...Yes." Dad said, opening up his trimmed nostrils in absolute disagreement.
I do not recall what the papers were. I was too young to read. I knew, however, that once signed, mother would be "free."
That was what dad said. That she'd be free from this burden. That the ring he carried so gallantly on his finger would fall off. That we could start again.
My dad had many defects. He still does. No one's perfect. And yet, there is one impatiently wrong and suffocatingly disgusting way about this man that has never left me and never will, haunting me in my dreams, in the ways I interact with others, the way I grow and the way I love and the way I fuck. The way I open up to others and close them off from my life. The way I drink, and smoke, and take pills at night and immense amounts of caffeine during the day.
The one thing we all share.
We got into mom's room after dad delivered the signed papers. We found her in a hospital bed, with restrains on her wrist, burning with a high fever, sweating everywhere till the sheets were wet, yet so incredibly cold they dressed her in warm pijamas and had three covers over her. She was restrained, with leather belts holding her wrists and feet down so she could not escape not even her own hell.
She lifted herself up and screamed as high as her lungs and throat could take it, she screamed for so long I fell flat on the floor. Her spit flying everywhere, her eyes going red, her veins more and more noticeable.
When she was finished, my dad coughed.
"You done? I have a meeting in half an hour, so let's just get this over with." He said, pushing his glasses closer to his eyes, walking away and yelling for a nurse.
As soon as he left, mother fell.
"...Mom?"
With her mouth half open, and her eyes about to close, she turned her head to a little me, who struggled to get back on my feet.
I noticed the sadness. The regret. The humiliation and embarrassement this woman felt as she looked at her lost child who desperately wanted to just go back home. She looked at the offspring she brought to this world, her last creation, her last good deed, her one and only legacy to this world, and cried.
"I love you." When she said this, nurses and doctors came in the room, bumping into little me with franctic movements and blind nervousness.
"I can't hear him anymore." One nurse said, holding back a screaming victim who spouted no's and please's everywhere.
"Let's just get it done so he can leave." Another nurse said. Mom now looked at me in absolute desperation, asking me to call for help.
"Why is the kid here?" A doctor asked. Mom now spitting and bitting at every hand with a seringe that approached her.
"Can someone take him out of here please?" Another doctor said to a nurse, who grabbed me by the arms as I kicked and cried and yelled for my mother. She yelled for me. She yelled for help. She yelled she loved me. She yelled for me not to go.
My mother needed me, and there was nothing I could do.
Because adults are in charge.
Because I'm just a kid.
I was just a kid.
Because of that, so will I always be.
A small, frightened little boy, with a deep, concealed hatred for his father. For time. For wrist watches. For work.
For himself, for not being able to save the one person who showed him unconditional love.
When my mother ceased screaming, my heart stopped beating.
My dad since then has met someone else.
He has had more children, he has been promoted, he has been cheered and loved and praised and respected for his beneficial work to society and corporate and capitalism.
I'm still here. Forever stuck in time. Forever a little boy whose mother died. Forever the stepbrother. Forever the lonely half soul, broken shell of a human being who could not function in place any more.
I cannot breath.
I cannot feel.
I can only exist, and relive, and imagine.
What would happen.
What could happen.
What has happened.
And what will from now on.
Where will my father's children go from now on.
Where will they live, and love, and breathe.
And will they do the same thing.
Have we been doing the same thing, over and over again.
I don't know anymore.
