crafted by friction screaming and screaming until the child's cries became the only sound appearing human. It held them tightly, their liquidity dripping all over the beams surrounding the wharf, the sounds of their insides falling like rain.
As it dragged them toward its mouth, it slinked back and submerged, bodies shifting in waves as waters churned, a bloody trail disappearing beneath the water as hunks of human being were excreted from a closing mouth.
Then it left. It turned in the water, dozens of bodies floating into an opened mouth, the shape slowly beginning to vanish.
It left.
Arising from my knees slowly, listening to the screams and the cries of the broken, I felt somewhat selfish because I knew how great it felt to be alive. I thanked and pleaded and made peace with so many Gods, happy just to make those little observations, promising them that I would be a better person. I knew it was greedy to think I was being looked out for, knowing it might be wrong, but I couldn’t help it. Even though there were twitching children doing a nervous system tango, I still valued myself privately, happy I had survived.
It wasn't until later that I thought of the phone and the noise, and it wasn't until later that I saw what was waiting.
Three unread text messages:
(1) Your father wants to see you, if only in words. He needs to know you love him. Tell him you care.
(2) He is slipping. Maybe you can bring him back. Your love can be here even if you are not. PLEASE! I know you do not want to be here, but he needs you.
(3) I thought you were here for him, but I knew you couldn't be. S-E-L-F not L-O-V-E. Selfish love. He held on for you, you know, and you let him die alone. You are a corpse with a heartbeat and not my brother. I hate you right now.
I carried those texts around with me for a few moments before the gravity of it sank in. My father was dead. I had killed him. Perhaps I had not put a gun to his head, but I had cursed my father as he tried to communicate with me, his body sick, wanting nothing more than to hear from his son.
In the middle of the best moment in my life, I suddenly felt empty, feeling the Gods that had looked out for me just moments before were playing cruel games. Was this the only reason I was alive?
Walking back to the peer, looking at the rescue boats mingling with military vehicles, I thought of my father. All those times spent standing here, now lost, never to be reclaimed again. Walking to the edge I called to the creature, letting myself fall into the water, hoping beyond hope that I, too, might drown.
Perhaps the thing would come back and baptize me, making me clean.
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Thanks for reading this. I wrote this after the loss of my father, thinking about tragedy, knowing there are no greater monsters than the demise of someone we love.
Thanks, Wayne, you meant the world to me.
Check out my other works, and please support my book when it comes out:
An Aquatic Tale
The Little Men, by Om
The Down Below
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