Glory and Gore

Thirteenth Letter

hi daddy...

why did your second task have to be so difficult? it made me sad afterwards. alyssa even had to comfort me and take me out to get ice-cream. i marked it as the third saddest thing that has ever happened to me.

the first one was (still is) that you have left mother and i all by our lonesome while you are living it up in paris. the second, i would have to say is the entire heart failure thing. it has chained me to my home and sometimes i feel like i am an inmate that is a member of a mental penitentiary or a prison.

as soon as i read the note you left alyssa and i at the park, i didn't want to do it. but alyssa convinced me that if i didn't do this, i may not ever get to see you. that would be quite sad, don't you think? a young fatherless boy who had the chance to meet his father, but didn't complete a task, so he never did end up seeing him. it sounds tragic just thinking of it. so i did what was necessary and i wiped all of my fears and weaknesses until i was a complete slate.

when you asked me to build a pyre and burn steve i didn't see the point. but now i do. alyssa was went for me to be adventurous and to make a friend that was alive and real. but the task you left for me to kill my stuffed steve i have had since i was born...well, that was just pushing it on a whole new level. but once the deed was done, i understood why. there are only two things tethering me back to my homeboy life. steve the stuffed koala, and mommy. by me burning steve and exterminating his existence, i have been freed. steve was holding me back from my full potential. i am still extremely sad about him gone, and i cry about it every now and then, but in a way — killing steve humanized me even more.

i have completed your second task, daddy. and now i am anxiously awaiting your third task. then we get to meet!

thanks for the morbid, tragic, yet seemingly advising help dad.

                                                                love,

                                                                your son

                                                                stewart