Father Shadow, Michael Edward Duteau II [best ereader for graphic novels TXT] 📗

head.
This time, I had to look for a minute. I actually thought to myself, “Well, where is he?” I looked around for a minute. I pointed at a bush and said, “There!”
Nothing.
I was bamboozled. “Daddy?” I whispered. I looked around some more, trying to catch a glimpse of his hand or leg sticking out from behind a tall tree or grassy plant. Then a certain smell came to my nose. I don’t know why, but I smelt something strange, like something burning. It wasn’t burning wood, but just a burning smell, like coals.
I turned around for a minute, because I thought I had heard something. When I looked back, I saw a figure that didn’t look like my father. I didn’t know what it was, but it was a person. He had on a brown suit and a strange thing on his head that resembled a top hat, but it was taller and floppier.
Before even getting a good look at this new person, he screamed at me, “Boo!”
I screamed, and began to wail, burying my head into my knees, curled up into a ball laying on my side. The net of stuffed animals above me broke, and plush toys showered over me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but continued to cry hysterically.
My mother came in quickly, saying, “Honey, honey! What’s wrong?! I knew that damn thing would break eventually.” She scooped me up into her arms and cradled me.
I had to go over the whole ordeal with me and my dad playing hide and seek, which she was apparently unaware of, contrary to my belief. After telling her about hide and seek, and continued to bawl, yelping, “Daddy scared me! Daddy scared me!”
She continued to tell me that it was just a bad dream, but I knew I wasn’t dreaming. I don’t remember waking up from this dream any of the other nights I played this game with my father. I continued to tell her he was out there, and to go tell him to come inside and say sorry.
She told me he couldn’t. He wasn’t here.
I figured she must be mistaken. I had seen him every night for these past few weeks outside my window. But the it occurred to me, somehow, that my dad really was gone. Long gone. My mom didn’t tell me exactly where he was, why he was gone, or anything. She told me maybe I would see him again someday.
I asked, “Is Daddy dead?”
I didn’t really understand the concept of actually dying, but I knew that if you died, then you would be gone for a very long time, and maybe not come back. These were certain things I could learn from hours with your eyes on the television.
Again, she began to cry. She said, between sobbing, “Go to bed Michael. Everything will be okay.”
It was then that I realized my dad wasn’t coming back. It was then that I realized that weeks ago, when he went to the hospital sick was the last day I would see him.
It was then I realized that I wasn’t really playing hide and seek with anyone but myself. Imprint

Publication Date: 01-17-2010

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