The Scoop

Clark

Clark had moved to the city. It was the only way he could get away from his pain.

In the crowd of thousands, he felt so small. So... unimportant.

Somehow, it felt therapeutic to know how small his problems were when compared to the sea of people.

Ten years ago, he had just retired from his military service, coming home to his lovely wife. He ran into his house embracing his wife, twirling her in the air. They spent a wonderful year together, basking in the gentle, warm sun from the patio.

Everything went downhill on the day his mother died.

His mother was the only one he had ever known as a child. He considered his father a coward and his mother to be the most wonderful person in the world. In his eyes, she could do no wrong.

She patted his head, telling him "I love you no matter what, Clark." He'd smile and repeat the same phrase over and over. His mother, coming home late at night tired and ragged from work, still found the time to make his lunch for the next day. His heart warmed at the thought of his mother's sacrifice.

And now, he silently stood in front of his mother's coffin. The reality had only set in when he saw her seemingly content face looking at the dusty, white ceiling. He fought back the tears he promised himself he would never cry.

As he stood near the casket, mind still cluttered with the pleasant rudiments of his childhood, three men simultaneously wandered into the room.

Never had he seen such well-dressed men around his mother, a woman who had little money in her lifetime. Curiosity flickered in the back of his sulky brain, begging him to know who the men could be. If they knew his mother, they could certainly recount his mother's best moments.

The first man wore a business suit and an aristocratic gold watch. He dabbed his eyes with a black handkerchief. The business-man was the first to notice the microphone on the podium. He eyed it with the ferocity of a business major playing lacrosse.

"She had taken care of our children wonderfully." He shook the podium with the expertise of a fire-and-brimstone priest from the 16th century. The other two men gapped at his announcement.

"That can't be! She wasn't married!" The second man, who held a large two dozen bouquet of roses, as if on a date, replied stupefied.

"That's right!" The third man yelled, "She was my mistress!" There was no shame anywhere on his face. Perhaps he considered having a mistress to be an important milestone in his life.

The three men had come to a realization. Her son, the one who had arranged the whole funeral, was standing with them in the same room.

"... My mother..." Clark, feebly barked out. "There's no way... she was sleeping around like that... Did she..." He didn't want to admit it. That his saintly mother was a- "She lied to me? Then my father... he didn't leave because of me. But because of her unfaithfulness?"

The three men gaped at the first, real son of their mistress. Each one bore an expression of shame and regret.

Clark, however, couldn't stand the stares. The truth was out, yet it hurt more than he could handle.

He skipped the funeral, instead spending the day at the local pub down the street.

His wife believed it would be best to give him space. Yet, after a month, she knew her husband was completely lost. Lost and unable to hear what she desperately needed to say.

Clark had come home staggering, smashing into tables like a madman.

His wife ran to his side, trying to calm him. Pleading with him to sit down and drink some water.

No one would tell him what to do. His own wife wouldn't give him such a piteous stare. Was his wife, the one he loved more dearly than his own mother, helping him just to make herself feel better? Was his mother's love simply for her own self-satisfaction? Everything felt backward and nothing felt right. A pounding headache blurred his vision, masking his wife in a misty white haze. In his mind, he was sober and able to wipe away his problems with a flick of his wrist.

Although, he may have flicked his wrist too much.

He was sober when he saw the blood on the kitchen tiles. Dark crimson, like a wine, staining the beautiful home they had bought together.

The home they had decorated for weeks. Where he watered his plants and changed the curtains with the seasons. And now, their home was nothing but crimson.

He left the house quickly, still stumbling as he walked.

Since then, he never looked back.

He caught a bus, used his beer money to buy a hotel room in the sticks, and quickly took up enough odd jobs to permanently stay in the city. The place where he could blend in and live out his misery alone.

Nothing mattered to him anymore. No purpose meant no life.

He eventually found work as a construction worker, yet it did nothing to ease the guilt in his heart. That was- until he met a familiar face.