Key to Perfection

Reality of Death

It had been only a week since the day my dad had fallen. He had survived but his neck was permanently crooked and his head had been hit on his way down.

Oh yeah, and one more thing. He got better but he was in an asylum. The accident had left me more or less orphaned. I shuddered at the thought of him in his room.

He had been sitting on his bed. Head in a neck brace, talking to an invisible being.

I was confused and slowly crept into the room.

I heard her dad mumbling. "Yes dear! Clara is going to be home in." He paused looking at a watch that was drawn in marker on his arm. "Three minutes at the latest."

I didn't know who is shadow friend was, but I had an idea.

"Hey dad!" I said in as much of a positive voice as I could muster.

"Look at that! I told you." He looked at me. "Say hello to your mother Clara! It's rude to leave someone out of the conversation!"

"Dad. Mom's dead. Remember. She died in the car accident." I mustered as much strength as I could. Death to me was no longer angels singing and opening pearly gates as you strolled right into your new life. It was now a place where cackling creatures dragged off my mother into an unknown world of no return.
It had taken her, it was taking him.
The shadow of death shrouded him, dark bags under his eyes, bloodshot and red. Skin hanging off bones, yellow and filled with veins that spread like tentacles.
He was going to die.

My focus returned to his face. Full of anger.
"You take it back!" He spat, shaking with rage. " You should no better then to say something as awful as that!"
"Dad, you need to understand that mom is gone and she is never coming back."
"Last warning! You take it back!!!"
"Listen to me! She is gone, gone, GONE! She is dead! I saw her get buried!" My voice wavered and shook with rage.
"I told you not to." He said all of the sudden.

That was when he lunged forward and squeezed my neck with his massive hands.