Six o’ clock rolls around in a deluded silence. Things feel strange and I never saw Angela. It was almost like after Ariel’s body was found she just disintegrated into thin air. Her hold circumvents my mind day by day and I don’t think it’ll stop unless she’s completely gone from my life. Which of course, won’t happen. It’s useless.
As I turn the corner onto my street where lays my home with a sullen father and a grandmother’s home who I’m unsure of how to react to. Keeping my head down, I pass Mrs. Arters home in silence. I decide to chance a look in that direction; the flowers have all died. Her home looks sad and empty. I keep walking.
Trudging on towards my driveway I cut through the yard, unlock the front door noticing the lack of green and red around our home, and head up stairs to check on my Dad. Before I reach the stairs I notice the note still placed right where I left it this morning and the coffee pot still on. Did he ever get out of bed?
When I get upstairs, the door is slightly ajar. I peek in from my place on the stairs. He’s lying in the bed, his arm slung over the side and his eyelids drooping down like the carcass of a dead animal. I step up off the stairs into the hall; the floor creaks under my weight. His head jerks a bit as his heavy eyelids try to ease themselves open.
“Hey, it’s just me,” I say in a soft tone. He grunts and rolls over. I walk to the side of the bed.
“Dad, you need to get out of bed.” His soft snores have subdued the sound of my voice. He’s fast asleep. I grab him by the shoulders, lightly shaking him. He raises his hand to shoo me away.
“Dad, its late afternoon.” I reach for it and pull him up out of bed, sliding my hand under him as I do. He begins to grunt in protest.
“I don’t have any reason to get out of bed. I’m close to getting fired anyways. So, what’s the use?” His words are edged with despair. My dad’s giving up.
“I’m standing right here as a plausible reason to get out of bed.” I pull him out, throwing the sheets out of the way. He stumbles under the pressure of gravity.
“Stand up.” He begins to let himself fall. “Dad. Stand up,” I say in a more demanding voice.
“Jesus Christ, fine.” It’s almost as if time has taken him back to a whining, twelve year old boy. He revolts against my attempt to hold him steady by the shoulder.
“Listen to me. You can’t fucking sleep around all day, inebriating yourself to an acute dose of alcohol poisoning and then expect everything to stay the same because nothing is the same anymore, Dad. Absolutely fucking nothing. Pull your shit together because I’m not the man of the house. You are. She’s gone and she’s not coming back. You get that, don’t you?”
“It’s us against the world and we can’t let it pull us under because we’re not those pathetic boneheads still stuck in the mindset that life is all smiles and laughs and cheer. We’re better than that. We have so much to do and if you’re ambivalent about it, we won’t ever make it.”
YOU ARE READING
Story of A Lonely Guy
Mystery / ThrillerA girl. It only takes one for Brone’s life to go ripping at the seams, down the line of stitches like it was never strong enough to uphold life, let alone his. She takes wrong turns and he’s led right back to her. But she was never the one he wanted...
