My Father's Two Lives

by Brian Dunlop

My father is a secretive man. Sometimes more so that, I feel as if he has completely cut me off from his life. Oh father, you strange man, what are you hiding? What is it that you do not want me knowing? Tell me...

The day grew colder, with dusk in its later intentions. Boy, what a day it was. Today, father and I will spend quality time, together. He said that mom will be leaving us, soon and that we can have all the alone time that we would ever desire. I wonder where mom is going. Maybe she is going to see her friend, Ted that she always talks about on the phone and doesn't want father knowing about. Mom says that father has left us and I should let it go, but I don't want to. I don't know what she's even talking about. Father has never left us and he is much better than mom. He is a much better parent then her and I think that she knows that. Maybe that's why she wants to confuse me, when she tells me that he's gone. Mom has nothing on my father, in terms of who is a better parent. She even goes as far as to say that daddy is dead! Daddy is dead! Daddy is dead! Daddy is not dead, and he is daddy, he prefers to be called, 'father', you bitch! Man, do I hate her. I don't to live with mom, anymore. She is a crazy witch.

Flashbacks of horror croaded Arnold's mind. Arnold, the father of Justin, sat alone in a living room, watching the television, displaying an alternate reality on how his life should or could of been if he were a millionaire. As he reached for his remote, to shut off VH1 programming, he felt an ache from his side echoing from his body and from within the navy blue Lazy boy chair from which he siting on. "Boy, what a life", says Arnold, stroking his mid section with his right hand. "What the hell is poking me on this couch?" Arnold then looked down at the cushion, he was sitting on and saw a long, coiled, brown rusted spring, sticking out of a small hole. "My God", says Arnold, gazing at the spring. "I need a new chair." "Justin, where are you?", says a loud voice in the distance. "Justin? Stop talking about your father. Your father was a terrible man. Just let the situation lay to rest." "Angela?", says Arnold in confusion. "Why is she talking all that bullshit about me? That's not true. I'm not a terrible man, in fact, I am a great man...what does she know anybody? Mean old bitch" "Justin?! Justin?! Where the hell are you?! I am getting sick and tired of this! Come out, right now!", says the distant voice. "Okay, I am going to go over there and talk some sense into her. Man, it must be that time of the month for her or something", says Arnold as he gets up and off of the Lazy Boy chair. Arnold then exits the living room and proceeds into the kitchen. "Justin! Justin!" The voices grew ever closer as Arnold exits the kitchen and enters a long hallway. At the end of the hallway is a door and past that door was Justin's room. "Justin! Justin! Get over here! Justin! Justin", yells the voice, now getting closer and closer as Arnold inched his way up the hallway, towards the door. As Arnold draws ever closer to the door, the voices grow even louder and more aggressive. "Justin! Your awful, awful boy. Come now, or you will be punished!" Arnold then makes his way across the hallway to the bedroom door. Arnold then grips the door knob, turns it and enters Justin's room.

As Arnold, entered the room, he immediately noticed his wife, Angela, siting there on Justin's bed, with tears streaming down her eyes. "Angela?", says Arnold in confusion. "What is this all about? Where is Justin? Why are you yelling?" Angela then wipes her nose and sniffles. "I don't even know you, anymore", says Angela. "Arnold is dead, don't you understand that?!" "Angela, what are you talking about? You know that you are really hurting my feelings", says Arnold, gazing at his wife, lost in emotions of sorrow, regret and wrath. "Good!", yells Angela. "I'm glad this is hurting your feelings because you have already hurt mine. I've loved you, I've always loved you and this is how you repay me. Stop trying to be my husband. Arnold was and now he's dead and now as a step mom, I am trying my best. Who do you think you are? Do you think that you are clever? Or do you really enjoy cutting me off from your life? You are so selfish. You are becoming a sick man." "A sick man, eh... okay atleast I'm not the one who is fucking screaming at the top of my lungs about a child that doesn't even care to tell you where he is!", says Arnold, in a state of frustration and anger. Angela then sits back in shock, with a face that looked as if it were deprived of air. "My Justin... you make me sick. You are just like your father!", says Angela in retaliation. "What? What did you just say?", says Arnold with a chaotic glare in his eye. "My father was a great man. My father was much greater than you! You fucking witch!" yells Arnold as he lunges himself at his wife, Angela, wrapping his hands, tightly and firming around her throat, squeezing the life out of her, until she feel to the ground, dead. "She's...she's...she's dead", says Arnold in awe. "She's dead. I killed her. I actually did it. Oh my... Justin! Justin! It's okay, now! It's okay, now, come out from wherever you are hiding. Mommy's dead and daddy loves you", says Arnold as he scans his son's dimly lit bedroom. "I think I should check the halls, maybe he's there." Arnold then shut off the light to Justin's room and exited through Justin's bedroom door. Outside of the room, was an empty hallway. Arnold looked around some more, as darkness and a pause in reality occurs in his brain. Through the darkness, comes an enigma of light, within a dimension of time, stating that, "the sins of our fathers will be a never ending cycle of excuses for our own sins." A dimension of time, only that exists in the human mind, but in a way, in which, only the select few can trigger.

Father? Father? Where are you father? I look around and you are gone. I am stuck in this room of darkness. My room of darkness, that is. I should probably turn on the lights, though, for I grow bored of the dark. "Okay, time to get up", I say as I get up and off of the bed, in which I was laying down on. I then walk to my light switch at the end of my room and flick it on. My room then instantly lit up with a yellow glow and what I saw lying on the floor, beside the edge of my bed, shocked me to the core of my being. "Mom?", says I as I rush to my mom's aid, as she lay motionless on the floor. I grab my mom's wrist and I feel no pulse. "Mom?! Mom!?", I scream as I realise that my mom is dead. "Mom, don't die", says I as tears roll down my cheeks. "Who did this? Dad? Dad? Where are you? Dad?" There is no response. "Oh my God! Mom...mom", says I as I reflect all of the good times that I have had with her like all my birthdays and the first time I road a bike and my first...wait a minute, I notice, something strange. At the moment, my hands feel strong, yet tender, it feels as if I had squeezed real hard on a therapy ball. Boy, does my hands feel strange. "Mom, you were too young to die", says I as I bend over her dead body. As I look at my mom's lifeless corpse, I noticed, long red marks, running across the center of her throat. It appears as if she were strangled. "Poor mom, she looks like she had a painful death", says I as I go to wipe a tear from my eye. As I go to wipe the tear from my eye, I notice something even more shocking. "Oh my God", says I as I see, the same long red lines on the palms of my hands that I see across, my mom's throat. "Oh my God", I say as I stumble across the room, towards a mirror, sitting on a desk at the center of the room and as I look into the mirror, I see a boy and I as I turn to look away and look back into the mirror, I don't see a boy, I see a man, I see my father and then I look away, again and then I look back into the mirror and I see both myself and my father, blended into one, etched into the brain of one person, lay two. "What is going on?", says I/Arnold as police sirens ring loud in the horizon and then everything went black.

There sat Arnold at a small table, in a medium sized wooden chair, in a small room. Arnold thought, what a fool, those policemen were in the other room. They do not understand, how crazy my wife was, but they will because I will convince them because I am smarter than they are. I am better than them. I am better than all of them! I know that, they are out there, outside of this very room, spying on me. They're looking at me, thinking. They think that I am crazy. I may have killed my wife, but she was mad and if I wouldn't have killed her there, she probably would have killed me in my sleep because she doesn't have the guts to do it when I am awake and ready. Man, what a woman. She does not deserve to raise my son, Justin.


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