"Dad look what I made!" The high pitch and jubilant voice of the ten year old called through the house. A house oddly monochromatic and dreary in color. In his arms flailed a drawing of poorly put together scribbles. Then he saw his father, tall and lean, who took the boy into his arms and praised him. Memories flashed forward. The next thing he saw was his father screaming, and tears running down the face of his mother. Then a door slamming and finally a silence that would echo on. He didn't see her again. More memories whirled ahead. He saw his role model sitting in-front of a television, bottles splayed around the chair, in a place less than lucid. The young boy's mouth parted to speak but the inebriated shout of his father to go away cut him off.
Where did daddy go? The thought haunted him, the image of his father slumped in the chair, and the sound of his scream etched into his mind. He sees him now, grey and weak, on a hospital bed, and the high pitch of the child was now the deep timbre of a man. "Dad i-".. He wanted to tell him how much he loved him but, there was a part of him that never quite forgave his father for those years. Looking into the steel blue slits of his fathers eye, and for a second seeing the powerful and kind man he knew in his youth, he clasped his hand. "I love you dad." And his only reply was a pained groan...and a smile that brought from him a single tear.