This post was removed to reduce the spread of AI-generated garbage. I thought it was funny at first, but it’s just terrible. If you still want to see it, click here.
My Dad Died
This post is not entirely freeform, but it mostly is.. it follows real events nearly directly.. some parts are written immediately after they happened, some days later.
Either way.. it is incredibly personal and probably not worth much to anyone else.. but I have to express myself.
I just got a new phone, and my contacts didn’t sync, so I have to fix them manually. There’s one contact I don’t have to fix, a phone number that is meaningless, an address that doesn’t go anywhere for me, a birthday that’s .. well, I can’t give him presents anymore. There’s a hole in my heart where my dad used to be.
For me, death seems to come at me in waves. My first reaction is denial, mild shock and pain, or focused entirely on the practical: Where’s my dad’s dog, Wally? Then, the pain becomes severe. After some crying (sometimes mixed with more denial), I seem fine for a while, before a reminder sets the cycle off again.
I had a dream with my dad in it recently. As I write this, I don’t remember it at all, but I do remember feeling a mix of pain and comfort from it. Pain at the reality, comfort in.. well I’m not quite sure how to say it, but it offers some closure.
Standing in his house, it hits me again. I needed a rag to dust something off, and since I didn’t immediately know where one was, I decided to use one of his socks. He wasn’t around to be annoyed by it after all. I realized that there was probably the last pair of clothes he wore and took off when everything was fine just sitting in the laundry hamper. He was so preoccupied with making sure laundry was done that he almost never did a full load of laundry, so a hamper having more than a handful of clothes would be an oddity. There was exactly one set of clothes – except for jeans. The shirt was on top, and was one I’d given him a few years ago.
It was the last thing he wore when things were normal. Whatever he wore the next day was taken off in an ER. He had a stroke. It was small enough that he wasn’t even unaware of what was going on, he gathered a few things while waiting for the ambulance and called his best friend to come meet him to take the keys to his place and take care of Wally for him.
There was also his electric razor, plugged in to charge, because he’d need it in the next few days.. until he didn’t.
In the hospital, he was recovering well. He was set to go to his friend’s place for a week to get him back on his feet before returning home. Early in the morning on the day before this, he had another stroke, this one unrecoverable. Effectively, my dad died right then, but without immediate contact or direction about his wishes in this circumstance, a surgery was performed, and he was placed in ICU on life support.
When his friend found out, he arranged for them to cut life support during the next NASCAR race, as my dad was a big fan, and this seemed the most fitting way to say goodbye. They put it on the TV in his room, pulled the plug, and ten minutes later, his heart stopped.
I wasn’t anywhere near this, but it was the right decision. See, I’ve been having a long standing issue with T-Mobile. Because of their unreliability, I didn’t learn of any of this until it was all over, two weeks after it was over, through a partner being called by a sheriff who couldn’t call me directly despite having my number.
I’m sad I couldn’t have been there, or helped, but other than that, this was one of best ways I could imagine my dad’s death. While it certainly sucks to spend your last two weeks in a hospital room, he had his best friend visiting and was on the path to recovery. There was no indication of his demise, there was no suffering. It was a scary moment, and he getting back to normal life. The second stroke came with such veracity and suddenness that he did not suffer.
Most stories end with death. This one doesn’t, but what happened next is still too painful for me to express.
I don’t have a biological family anymore.
Chocolate (Drabble)
(This post has been imported from an old blog of mine.)
Dark brown stains led down the hallway, a sticky substance showing the path my victim took. The stench of blood rose into the air. I followed the trail, heard ragged breathing from behind the closet door.
He tried to lunge for my knife as I exposed his hiding place, but the furry paws of a teddy bear are not very strong. I stabbed down, and more dark liquid poured from his wounds.
The sound of police sirens came from somewhere in the distance, I grabbed an arm and squeezed the blood into a container before running. Chocolate is so good.
Drabble is a form of extremely short storytelling, where you are limited to exactly 100 words. I wrote this one a long time ago.
The Death of Me (Fiction)
(This post has been imported from an old blog of mine. Warning: Contains graphic descriptions.)
Somewhere in the distance I see her eyes, glowing green in the darkness. “Tes!” I call out for her, but she is already gone. I stand in the swirling black, watching the pine trees around me sway in the winds.
The world slowly rips apart, brightening and darkening in an erratic fashion. I know what is going to happen next, it happens the same way every time. A glowing white doorway opens in front of me.
I reach out, silently asking for help. A shadow comes to the doorway from the other side. Their eyes briefly show in clarity, an extremely pale blue. Then everything starts to fade, and the shadow’s eyes turn red.
I fall to the floor, and feel the stab wounds on my back. I reach for the doorway, seeing light reflect off of my hand. My hand is wet. With my other hand, I feel for where my guts were a moment ago.
I try to ask for help, but my throat only lets out the sound of a weak gargle. I taste bitter salt, my own blood and bile rising up. I feel ice water dashed across the back of my head, my face slams into the ground. It is concrete.
The cinder-block slides off of the back of my head. I wonder how I can withstand this much pain, and die.