The Estranged Mindless Delights: A Collection of Short Stories

A Collection of Short Stories: If Only I Could Say

Copyright ©Lee Luna 2011

 

Genre: Nonfiction

If Only I Could Say

My hand twitched at my side as I felt the rising urge to move and grab hold of the knob that would release me from this chant.

As we rode back from the hotel, the car ride was far too slow for my nerves as the sound track of the new CD that my father bought thrummed inside the car as it preached out its message. 

The man’s voice was a low base and thick as he sung about lifting ones face and accepting what’s to come with such passion that I wondered if he would possibly cry if I see him live. It was odd to think about it, but that’s just all I could imagine during the song.

The man beside me seemed to be lost into the music as he struck his russet tinted fingers against the wheel while keeping his expression of sharply intent. His eyes searched the street for any possible suspicious activity as though something could possibly jump out at the last second. It wasn’t unusual for my father to act like this. Even though he had long since served his time in Iraq, I believed he would never stop glancing over his shoulder.

I wanted to say something. Anything that would get my father to understand that this continuance of ignorance couldn’t persist without end. Denying such things will only allow the mind to fester to such a degree that it will eventually collapse before my very eyes. If that were to occur, then I had no doubt the rift would soon become too wide to even fill in the jagged gaps. As these thoughts entered my stream of my mind, a grey ghostly veil of memories spoke in my mind, reminding of other times that haves passed and relieving their words.  

“I know you don’t agree with mine.” He said to me once, after a time we had a heated debate over the discussion of music and books that differed from the other. “But I don’t agree with yours either.”

I wondered if it was always going to be like this. Constantly tap dancing over the other person’s words and forever accepting the facts that we were different in some ways. I loved my father greatly, but the man was beyond stubborn for his own good. If he didn’t have the mind of a mule and would stop stomping at the subject, then perhaps we could find some sort of compromise. Unfortunately, I was beginning to find that I highly doubted that would ever occur. 

I sometimes suspected that my thoughts leaned towards the more logical side of life, and preferred to study the life around me and unlock the secrets that had yet to be tapped by our civilization. Although I do have a love for fantasy, it was my father who stated that I should get down from the clouds at times and read a good book, one that he had come to admire and cherish whenever he needed a certain guidance for his life.

I found it strange at times when he would claim that it was the only good thing out there in the world; and how it was able to save those who were in desperate need to seek the light to help them. Seeing my father’s strong reaction to this certain book, I found that I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was in love with a little bit of fiction too.

‘I wish you could understand.’ I once thought to myself, hoping that by some miracle that the words would leave my lips by accident so he could hear them and possibly think over them. I doubted any good would come of it since it would most likely end with him looking down upon me in some inexplicable way and claim I didn’t understand how the great world worked. Or how this majestic universe was carved by a signal force that could certainly end my life without a second glance and send me to a place that was most undesired.