Spitballs

The Father At His Feet

He could feel the pain gnawing away at him. The mouth crunching against his bones, enveloping him over and over again, to be driven back by something else, something he wasn't sure of yet.

His father lay at his feet. Motionless.

All he could see was that look in his eyes. That look that said everything, but felt unfinished all the same. The hurt, the deep and pure hurt, as he realized what was happening.

"I'm sorry father." He said, and he meant it. He meant it more than he'd meant anything he'd ever said to him before.

He could remember the way he used to stare in the mirror, repeating the words over and over. I love you, dad. I love you, dad. The way he'd say them until his mouth ran dry, and his voice was barely a whisper anymore. The way he would finally break down after hours, and cry, cry until the tears had brought the feeling back to his throat and the dampness back to the carpet. And that was when he knew he was empty, that they was nothing at all left inside him, and that there never would be.

The relief was rash and hard, but he let it come in. His father was dead. His father was dead.

The pain was softer, but it was still gnawing. Waiting. It would wait for him, it would wait for him to break, just like it always had. It would wait for the words to subside, and for their meaning to be lost, and then it would hit him, and it would break him, break him so that he never thought he could break again, but then it would push harder, and he would break all the same.