Promises
It’s not the crackle of machine guns tearing your son apart, or the laughter of his murderers echoing in your heart. It’s not the sight of your parents’ corpses being dumped into an open pit, nameless specks forever forgotten. It’s not the pain when the dog’s teeth sink into your face and the iron cane breaks your ribs. It’s not the desperate impotence of seeing the woman you love being passed around like a toy, from soldier to soldier, until her eyes dim and her soul withers. It’s not even that final stare into the dark, endless abyss inside the barrel of a gun or the doors of a gas chamber.
The most horrible moment in your life is when the sound of the marching jackboots stops just right in front of the entrance to your hideout, and in the eyes of your family you can see how your promise to keep them safe failed them. How you failed them.
Daughter
Every night. Every fucking night. Our daughter’s crying keeps me and my girlfriend up at night. We never get any sleep, and she’s always. Fucking. Crying. We don’t understand why she won’t stop. I mean, we love her, we keep her fed, we keep her warm, we visit her grave every damn day. What more could a child possibly want?
Beyond
He would have been 12 now. Every year, on his birthday, I watch the last video I took of him. His 7th birthday, he was so happy. He played with his friends, blew out the candles, opened up his presents, then swung at the pinata.
They never found out who drove the truck that hit him. Every year I try to get more answers from the police. Every year I bake a cake. Every year I watch that video.
I always cry at the end, when everyone had left and he walks up to the camera and said, “Thank you Daddy, I love you, I always will, never forget that.” My television is stained from my tear-soaked hand print as I touch the screen weeping.
But for the first time in four years I look up at the screen before the tape cuts out.
He holds his hand against mine through the glass and smiles sadly at me.
Dancer
The studio where she dances has walls made of mirrors. Her duplicates stretch to infinity. She raises her arms and, balancing on her toes, she slowly begins to turn. All her reflections do so as well. All but one. The one almost to infinity. It stops. And it watches.
Good Morning
5:30 You wake up to the sound of your alarm at.. Just another normal day..
5:50 You make your way into the kitchen to start brewing your morning coffee to get you going, noticing a slight breeze as you exit your bedroom. You don’t remember leaving a window open, but you’re not quite sure, it was a long night after all…
6:04 After starting the coffee machine up you mosey your way towards the bathroom to start your shower, when you glance towards your son’s room, seeing that the door is ajar. Odd, but he could have gotten up to go to the bathroom and forgotten to shut the door so you think nothing of it…
6:33 You finish your morning routines, kiss your sleeping wife goodbye knowing she’ll see your son off to school, and as not to disturb neither your son nor your wife you quietly slip out the front door off to another grueling day at work. Although nothing could be worse than the day you had yesterday..
7:28 You receive a call from your wife. Your son… he’s not in his room, the windows open, the room is a mess and his sheets are soaked with fresh blood. You call the police…
7:49 The police arrive at your house. A broken clock found on the floor at the foot of your sons bed reads 6:03…
