In the Aftermath

Chapter One

Chapter One: In the Aftermath

Ethan was half-awake when the phone rang. 

A single week had passed since his graduation from high school and Ethan was still reveling on the freedom he finally got. Sleeping in, staying in, and doing anything he could possibly want was the life that school had decided to take away from him. But now, school's done. And nothing could stop him.

Ring... ring...

The teenage boy laid on his bed inside his dark room. Thick curtains blocked out the sunlight from streaming in and the blankets were messily strewn all around the floor. The room was a pigsty, or so Ethan's mother would say. But what lived in the room was a pig anyway, so why try to change it?

Ring... ring...

A snore came out from the hibernating bear. What the hell was taking his mother so long to pick up the phone? The tone of the phone ringing was just as annoying, if not more so, than the damn alarm clock he used to put up with when he still had school. Hearing it made Ethan reminiscent about the dark days.

Ring... ring...

The bear groaned in annoyance. Ethan realized that his mother had told him that she was working early in the morning today. This meant that he had to answer the stupid phone and interrupt his peaceful, well-deserved slumber.

Ring... ring...

Ethan groggily got to his feet and walked on the ocean of dirty laundry that scattered his bedroom floor. He made his way towards where the phone was in his room and picked it up from the receiver.

"Blunt's residence," he said to the phone, his eyes only half-opened and the words coming out of habit.

"Ethan?" a familiar voice replied from the other line. "Where's your mother?"

There was only one person in the world that could turn Ethan's peaceful morning into an irritating one. And Ethan did not like talking to that person right now.

"I don't know, dad," Ethan answered. "I think she said she had to come in to work early today. Can I take a message?" He yawned loudly towards the receiver, carefully making sure that his father knew that he was interrupting Ethan's sleep.

"I don't have time for your games, Ethan!" his father said.

And here we go again. Why was it that everything Ethan did was just "a game" for his father? When he asked if he could move out from his mother's, what was his answer: "I don't have time for your games!" When he asked if he could apply to a college of Arts in California, what was his answer: "I don't have time for your games!"

If everything that he did were just "games," Ethan decided to have a little fun with them.

"Yeah, dad, jeez... calm down," Ethan said to the phone. "Listen, you know mom's phone number at work, right? Then, just call her there. Okay? Yeah, bye."

He started to place the phone back to the receiver. If he wasn't so sleepy he might have heard the pleading voice from the other line.

"No, Ethan wait! I don't have much time. Be careful and always remember I love..."

Click. 

The boy sighed with relief after his "conversation" with his father. How dare he think that he still knew his son after all those times when he was gone. Ethan never voiced out this feeling since the beginning because he knew that men his age were not supposed to act like so, a lesson that he learned from his father himself.

He stared at whatever else was on top of his drawer. Ironically, what he saw was the face of his dad beaming up towards him in a picture frame. He looked worrisome and old; another perk that his job offered. Ethan could deal with the look of his father though. But what he had trouble comprehending was the fact that he only saw his father once in a blue moon. Now what's wrong with that picture?

His father's name plate was just a little askew when they took the picture, a fact that Ethan just couldn't fathom. He always thought the military had to be perfect and organized in every way imaginable. They had to stand as straight as could be. Answer every question in a certain way.

The thought made the boy smiled as he examined the photo of his father.

And in the plate, printed in white bold letters, was the name: Alvin Blunt.