Life With You

Part 18: Alone: Gohan

This was the worst week of Son Gohan's life.

How could so many bad things happen to him when he's only four years old and all in one week? What did he do to deserve this?

The week started off happily with Gohan having breakfast with Mommy and Daddy, playing, reading, and having lunch with his parents before leaving with Daddy to visit Daddy's friends. The new people Gohan met were nice. All was well until a bad man appeared, claiming he's Daddy brother and Daddy's an alien.

The new word was foreign to the four year old but from what he understood, alien meant Daddy was born on another planet. The bad man said Daddy was sent to Earth as a baby and Daddy was supposed to do bad things.

That wasn't Daddy. Daddy didn't do bad things. He did good things. Daddy saved the world. Daddy helped people. Daddy won the World Martial Arts Tournament and was crowned strongest man in the world. No one could defeat Daddy but this bad man knocked Daddy down with one strike. Seeing Daddy crumple to the ground, crying in pain, scared Gohan. When he tried to go to Daddy, the bad man grabbed him and told Daddy he had to kill a hundred people. The bad man took him away but Daddy and the man he knew to be Piccolo came to rescue him.

Daddy and Piccolo weren't strong enough to stop the bad man. In the alien's ship, Gohan heard Daddy screaming in pain. It made Gohan sad then angry. He didn't like this bad man hurting his Daddy. Gohan wanted to hurt him. Somehow he broke out of the alien's ship and summoned enough strength to attack the bad man. Daddy told him to run but the bad man hit him before he could. Everything went black after that. When Gohan woke up, Piccolo told him the horrible news: Daddy died saving him, he will have to fight two aliens coming to Earth in a year and he had to live outside alone for six months. To Gohan's horror, Piccolo flew away ignoring his pleas to stay, tell him where to find food, where he will take a bath and where he could find a bed to sleep in.

Piccolo. He yelled, threatened to slice his throat and even threw him towards a mountain just to show he had great power hidden in him. Couldn't have there been a better way for Piccolo to show he had this hidden strength? Mommy and Grandpa were right about Piccolo and Daddy was wrong.

Once a month, Gohan and his parents visited Grandpa at his castle. Gohan loved visiting Grandpa. He was so nice and always had gifts for him. His home was huge, too. Gohan would get lost if he wasn't accompanied by his parents or his Grandpa when he wanted Gohan to spend a weekend alone with him. After dinner, Gohan sat between his parents on the sofa listening to Grandpa share tales of his youth. Somehow topics changed to King Piccolo which led to Daddy telling Gohan of his fight against King Piccolo's reincarnation at the World Martial Arts Tournament.

"And then Piccolo grew over fifty feet tall! He towered over all of us like that lizard in that movie we saw." Daddy wailed his arms excitedly. "My heart was pounding. I was shaking! It was great!!"

Gohan's eyes grew wide. He knew of the movie and the monster his Daddy talked about. This Piccolo that fought his Daddy was a giant! "What did you do next, Daddy?"

"I jumped around the ring a lot. Piccolo tried to squash me like a bug. He knocked me down a few times, but I got back at him." Daddy was on his feet acting out the story as he told it. "I kicked Piccolo behind his knee and he fell on his butt." Gohan put hands over his mouth giggling at the image. "Then I grabbed Piccolo's finger and threw him to the other side of the ring. Boom! The whole area shook."

"Yay!" Gohan clapped enthused.

"Heh. Heh," Daddy chuckled. "Your Pops was feeling pretty good about himself, Gohan. I tossed Piccolo to show him his size didn't scare me. I told him I would be in real trouble if he grew bigger. Wouldn't you know it; Piccolo grew even bigger!"