The Silent Sound

A Cathartic Moment

I was supposed to be meeting Dr. Caulfield today, but instead I sit in a small, French themed café in a town far away from my house. I haven't run away – I don't possess the ability to leave the area my son once lived in – but in reality, have simply taken a vacation away from the emotional trauma I faced every single day.

It seems odd to label the sadness a father feels when his young son, who he raised for eighteen long years, dies as an emotional trauma, especially since I have not outwardly exhibited any signs of mental distress, but it is true. The air of loneliness, the lack of my son's presence at the dinner table, the small talk between my wife and I, the growing distance between the two of us, and the mind-games I play with Dr. Caulfield, have all begun to take a toll on me.

I can no longer deal with my emotions in a healthy manner. Now, that's not to say that previously I had been dealing with my mental trauma in a healthy or normal way – that is as far away from the truth as the sun is from Earth – but rather, I had managed to keep everything inside of me for the most part. Sure, I had my weak moments when I wanted... No, needed... for someone else to feel the pain I felt. Those were the moments I made my wife cry, despite knowing that she already cried a lot on her own time, and those were the moments I most regretted and enjoyed.

I was not a sadistic person. I did not get joy from harming other or watching other's cry. No, that was my father. He didn't love me or anyone else for that matter. Everything I am, or was, he was the complete opposite.

While I loved my son to the point of no return, as a father should, he had never loved me. Mine was a typical child abuse story, but, though science says that a child who experiences abuse is more likely to become a child abuser, I had vowed that I would never be a monster like him. I'd love my child, or children, to the point where they will look back at me, when I'm dead, fondly. But now, that can't happen.

My son, the only child I had spawned, is no longer alive and he has been dead for more than two years. All because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn't even a hit and run accident, or an accident at all. No, despite what the police and media had to say, it was cold-blooded murder and my poor, innocent son was a victim.

He had been elated because he was only two weeks away from attending college in a nearby state university and had left the house to buy some supplies he had thought were necessary, but that was the day some drunk, out of his mind, man decided to rob the local store.

As that perverse criminal ran away from the scene, having injured many customers, my son was on his way home, or so the police told me. Somehow, somewhere, my son and the robber, whose name was Ryder, had collided and that was the exact moment the police chose to arrive.

More likely than not, terrified out of his mind, knowing that he was heading to jail, Ryder chose to use my son as a leverage, taking him hostage, to gain freedom. While the police complied at first, the minute they saw an opening, they began shooting Ryder and in the cross fire, my poor son became a target.

The police had apologized and blamed Ryder, but even he, the man responsible for my son's death, was dead and there was no way for me to exact revenge. I was simply left with my son's body riddled with holes and told to weep for my loss.

Now, it is my turn to inflict pain. They had their chance, Fate had its laugh at my expense, and my father was probably mocking me from hell, but it is my turn now. So, I sit and wait in this small café for the opportune moment.

I need to gain relief from the blood that has been seeping from the bullet holes in my body. The only way to do that, I presume, is to hurt someone else.

A small rifle lays silently inside my coat in a hidden pocket. It contains five bullets, four for some unsuspecting victims and one for me to join my son. This would be a murder-suicide event and no doubt, the news of my death would travel to my wife's ears faster than lightning. Even after I'm dead, I'm going to make her cry. But, for now, I wait.

Minutes pass by as I watch my surroundings with interests. I watch the customers and play a sick game of Russian roulette in my head with them. Of course, in my mind, I never die.

A young boy enters the café with his father, smiling widely with his crooked and missing teeth. He reminds me of my son. I gaze into the far distance as I see a vision of Cody, my son, smiling at me. I make an attempt to get up off my seat, but the vision vanishes as I blink. I scowl and sit back down.

My throat is scratchy and dry. I feel the need to cough, but then I realize, I simply feel the urge to cry. But why should I cry? No one seems to hear the sound of my heart breaking and my soul dying. It's as if my tears are silent and my life on mute. I'm just a ghost, drifting in the wind.

I stare at the café table, admire the wooden carvings on the surface, and try to blink away my tears. I cannot weep before my revenge is done. But, my tears betray me.

A lone tear breaks out of the wall I placed in my tears ducts and slides down my face. I try to ignore its presence, but like a thorn it prickles my skin as it slowly slides down. I scowl again. Am I not a man anymore? Why am I sitting here weeping when I could be exacting my revenge? I have no answers to my own questions.

I move my hand to my pistol, sigh in relief as I feel the metal touch my skin, and begin to count down the moments before I turn into a blood-lusting lunatic and a murderer. However, seconds before I could rise from my chair, moments before I could take out my gun and wreak havoc, a child appears out of nowhere.

Upon closer inspection, I find that it's the same child with crooked and missing teeth. He smiles at me.

"What do you want," I say, my voice deep and rusty from the sobs lodged in my throat.

He smiles continuously and raises his hand to my moist cheeks.

Wiping away my tear, he says in his child-like voice, "Don't cry sir. I can't stand to her the silent sound of your tears."

As if a bucket of ice-cold water has been thrown over my head, as if my son's soul has possessed this child's body, I feel my sobs rising in my throat and before I can stop myself, I reach forward and hug the young boy.

Crying and sobbing like a child, I hug the boy tightly and subconsciously note how he doesn't run away like an immature child.

This was the cathartic moment I had been waiting for. It's as if the police has shown up at my front door in the middle of the night once more and shown me my dead son. It's as if my father has woken up again from his drunken sleep and decided to punish me for a crime I never committed. It's as if my father has died and I am finally free.

I feel reborn.

 The End