Untitled Short Story

Standing in front of me
A reflection which bears similarity
With who I used to be

I stare into its eyes
And look deep inside
And all that I could find was an empty
Place in my eyes

I swear up and down
I didn’t intend for it to become an eerie
Awkward meeting

With myself I stare
And look and see a reflection of
My past and the path that I took
Early in life

I see who I was
And who I am wasn’t part of me
Before I knew it

These were the words that I had spoken to myself every day since that accident from eight years ago. It was this year that I had dropped out from high school. You could say that I was a bit of a troublemaker. My grades were far below par simply because I wasn’t doing my homework, nor was I showing consistent test scores. I was quite the blabbermouth! More often than not, I’d get a recommendation to speak to some counselors after mentioning a good portion of rather adult material around kids. And of course, having lived the life of a Marine for most of his life, dad would be very whip-happy if he learned of my actions.

When I got home, I found him in his favorite black leather club chair, with the usual wisps of cigar smoke rising above his head. This time, it had felt different walking in. The television was turned off, and the central lamp was dimmed.

“Come here,” he said to me, quietly. “We need to talk about your school issue.”

“Uh, sure,” I answered in a similarly quiet tone. He stood up, took a few more drags from his Cuban hand-rolled cigar, then snuffed it in its ashes in the machined quartz ash tray that resembled a fine diamond from its laser cuts and three-dimensional engraving. I stood in place for a couple of minutes, then walked over to the couch and sat down, slightly slouching in my posture.

He finally began to speak. “You dropped from high school, or so says your counselor. No son of mine is going to be a failure.” His mood became tense at this point. ” So, your mother and I have decided that your best course of action is going to be based strictly on experience. If you plan on staying out of school, then you are to get a job by two weeks from today. You believe you are responsible enough, and I’m going to hold you to it. No, we’re not punishing you. We’re simply allowing you to make this decision with conditional exceptions. Two weeks from today, you are to be working–anywhere–and we are going to charge to you stay here. It’ll no longer be free for you to sit in your room and play games or listen to satanic music. $350 per month is the price.”

It was at this point that he turned around, with something in his hand. I couldn’t tell what it was in the dimmed light, but it appeared to be a belt of sorts. I’d seen his belt many times before, especially as a child. If it was anything to become recognized, it would be that this was a day that I would get yet another whipping. But here I was, sitting in a couch and attempting my best poker face. In my mind, I was stricken with fear and in a state of foreboding.

“So, are you going to do something about this situation then? Or am I going to have to let my belt do some talking?”

“Look, ” I stammered, slightly furious, “you’ve used that belt to do your talking ever since I was a kid. I think it’s time you did some growing up and become more open to what it is I want and not what you want me to do.

“Why the hell is it that I have to be interested in a sport that I have no intention of becoming a part of? Every day, it was you pestering me to play some stupid game where–where I have to hit a ball with a bat and…I’m sick of it! I’m dropping out to teach you a lesson!”

This angered him quite a bit. I could see the veins in his neck pulsing, and his face was a reddish beet color. He let one end of the belt drop, and then folded it in half. This was his little punishing friend, and had been for many years. He then started walking towards me, but I jumped up out of the couch. Angrily, he began to semi-trot around the room in pursuit of me, but I did my best to stay outside of the range of his belt. My heart began to pound really heavily and I broke out into a sweat. When I got to the couch again, he saw an opportunity to get me. I moved again around the couch, and accidentally ran into the small table that held his quartz ash tray. It began to wobble around, and then finally fell off the table. In a strangely vain attempt to rescue his ash tray, he dived to the floor to catch it. It shattered on the ground just inches from his finger tips, but it left a single shard that, upon falling to the ground, caught him in his jugular. In just moments, I heard a yelp, screams of gargling agony as he began to breathe in his own blood. The wound had pierced deeply into his neck, and not only was there a pool of blood on the ground, but he was drowning. All I could do at this point was stare into his eyes in horror of what I had just seen, both directly and indirectly in the mirror that he was reaching out for as he took his last few breaths.

Someone finally burst into the room, and turned around and immediately called the police.

In half an hour, I was arrested and my dad had bled to death in the game room. The mirror stuck in my mind, particularly because it seemed as if everything that happened that afternoon was also witnessed by the mirror–an inanimate object saw what had happened, and the event became forever emblazoned into my mind. To this day, these padded walls remain my full-time companion.