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Death Wants, Death Takes

Stitch

AKA Patrick
Joined
Aug 13, 2013
This is an old story I wrote a while ago and never really published it anywhere. It is very strange with themes of death, regret, and suicide. I hope you find it interesting.

Death Wants, Death Takes

All that I knew was that the man was dead and that the fifth star to the north was fading. That day the world died and then continued to live, in my perspective anyway…

I wake up, unsure if this was a dream or actual, real life. Today was my father’s funeral. The bastard was dead. My loving father was dead. My blankets are too warm, so I quickly throw them off. I walk to the bathroom, cold. I swear I see his face in the mirror.

Showered and clothed I am walking down Main Street. Monday and none of the stores are open. The bar is, but **** it. He died of cancer that was likely caused because he was an alcoholic and didn’t give a damn. I loved him. I continue to the memorial at the end of Main Street. A memorial to some battle that took place here some hundreds of years ago...the dead are to always be remembered.

He will be forgotten.

Fifteen years ago in the park just off Main Street he would push us, me and my brothers, on the swingset and play soccer with us. He had a job, we had a house, they didn’t fight. That swingset is still there, along with the slide that my older brother broke his arm falling from.

Now that park is desolate, too early in the day. The day I bury my dad. Does damnation await him in hell? Or has damnation already taken him? The answers aren’t mine to know.

Walking back home, I can hear a train on the north side of town. We used to live right next to the tracks. When my brothers and I were younger we would put coins on the track, so that when the train would run over them they would bend in strange ways. I don’t have any coins in my pockets today.

Unlocking the door to my house I could hear lively birds chirping. Summer was upon us, school would be out, me and my brothers would be playing outside what feels like just yesterday. Today we wouldn’t be playing, we haven’t played for years.

I stepped in; the phone rang; I answered. It was his voice...dad’s. My brother tells me to be there by noon. It is just after eleven o'clock. I tell him I need a ride, I hadn’t driven since the accident. He says a family friend would be there around eleven-thirty. I hung up.

I sit on my couch waiting. Eleven-ten. Eleven-fifteen. Eleven-twenty. My mind has started reconstructing the accident. I was driving and I was upset, I had a fight with my dad about him choosing to live at home instead of an assisted living facility. I hadn’t seen it coming. I had the right of way, but if I had stayed at the stop sign a few seconds longer that girl wouldn’t have died. She had just passed her driver's test the day before. In seconds she rammed into the passenger’s side of my car. Her airbag failed to deploy and her seat belt had given way just enough for her to crack her skull open on the steering wheel. She at least died in the hospital surrounded by family.

Eleven-thirty-five. They probably are having trouble finding my house. Eleven-forty. They must be stuck in traffic. Eleven-forty-five. My phone rings again. My brother tells me that their vehicle broke down. The funeral would have to start without me as they figured out what was wrong with the car. My mother was being emotional and demanding that it start on time.

She is the fifth child in her family. She had grown up on a farm, where her father died in an accident with a piece of farming equipment. Her mother passed away from natural causes when I was young. All her siblings were still living. She has the same cancer that took him.

Thirty minutes later they pick me up and drive to the funeral. Forty-five minutes later I take my last look at my father. An hour later we are at the cemetery lowering him into the grave. Within a year my family would likely put my mother into the grave next to him. I have accepted the fact that Death comes for us all.

That night I overdose on some pills I had been taking for a pain in my leg from an injury from when I played soccer as a teenager. My father had taught me to play. The girl I had killed was a star soccer player in her high school team.

I wake up the next morning alive. Death only takes those it wants...even Death doesn’t want me.
 
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