In the dead of the night, my father sat at the head of the table. He stared at the framed, faded photographs on the wall, reminders of the empty shoes once filled by happy family members. The memories of brighter times flooded his mind. After everyone had left, the house seemed to pause, echoing with the residue of everyone’s fear. The walls felt heavier. The rooms, once full of laughter, now held only a desperate reluctance to leave.
As if carrying the weight of his burdens behind him, and with a heavy heart, he wandered past the worn shoes by the door, each one telling a story of departures, falling-outs that could never be reconciled, and goodbyes that would forever stay in plain sight. He walked toward his room with a rope in his hand, a symbol of his despair. His mind flashed to the times my mother would murmur that every cloud has a silver lining, though her voice trembled with fragility.
He regretted what he had done. He had ruined his family, and now he was left all alone, like a flower without the sun. It was too late for him; he couldn’t cry over spilt milk. He had hit the nail on the head, but now the nail was too crooked to be hammered straight anymore.
In his room, the chandelier hung from the ceiling like a fragile crown, its crystals catching the dim light and scattering trembling reflections across the walls. Each dangling prism shivered with every whisper of wind, casting shadows that danced like memories of forgotten laughter. It dripped with blood, as the one strict, happy man was reduced to nothing but a cold, lifeless corpse. Maybe in another life, he would have been a better parent and husband, and not fallen into such ruins.
