Welcome to my Nightmare #Completed #WattyAwards2016

~Avete il potere di portarmi indietro~

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                     Due to my inability to sleep, I decided to get up at 5 am. My eyes were stuck on a spot in my ceiling where I used to have a picture of a swim suit model as a kid. Somehow no one noticed it when they walked in the room. Except Serenity of course. Who only killed me with smart remarks and daunting laughter. 

"So what? Do you jerk off to her before bed?" Her laugh was the same now as it was then. She bothered me until I decided to take it down. I'm not sure where it is now. But I wouldn't mind having it back up there. 

Dad gave it to me when I was in 7th grade. "Put it somewhere mom cant see it." He had said. The ceiling was one of the most obvious places, but she never looked up. I turned on my side and stared at the picture of Dad on my dresser. He looks so happy, smiling like some kind of geeky model. I held the picture in my hand and stared at it for minutes. Memorizing his clothes and his hair, his voice came to mind, his smell began to burn my nose and his death began to water my eyes. I cleared my throat and set the picture back on the dresser then got up and slid out of all my clothes. 

I walked to the bathroom in my underwear and started a hot shower. Deep breathes, happy thoughts, I cautioned. I allowed the water to console me in its warmth. I knew what I was going to do the remainder of the morning. I would have to leave quietly, I don't want to wake mom. 

After half an hour in the bathroom, I tossed on one of Dad's sweaters. It was too big for me, extremely roomy, but it brought a sense of comfort. The army green sweater still smelled like him. To describe the smell is beyond me but I could pick it out anywhere. I looked at myself in the mirror. A grimace plagued my face, I used to think I looked like him.

Looking in the mirror I saw a trace of him in myself, not a specific facial resemblance but just the structure that I stood in was his. They way I moved and spoke, his voice was mine. Even family members couldn't tell the difference over the phone.

I struggled to find a deeper relationship with my adopted father, something other than just living together. I shook the thought out of my head. Of course there was something more than that. He raised me. I couldn't blame myself for missing him. 

I continued getting dressed in a daze. Not really paying attention to what I was doing. before long my shoes were on and my hair was somewhat acceptable. The door creaked nosily when I tried to get out of my room. Mom was a light sleeper, the smallest of noises could wake her. 

Somehow I made it out the room and down the stairs without waking her. I took the car keys off the kitchen table and walked through the back door, avoiding the alarm. 

Beep beep.

Front door.

 Was extremely annoying if the person at the front door wasn't trying to murder you or steal something. I deactivated the alarm for the back door 3 years ago. Dad and I sometimes got up early on Saturday mornings and drove to the dock to watch the seagulls go wild. We always made it back before mom was up at 9. 

The sun had not yet been replaced and so the moon was peeking at me through the clouds. It was  a chilly day today but I didn't feel like turning the heat on in the car. Something weird in me wanted Dad's sweater to be the only warmth I received. Driving to a Cemetery is never an easy thing. Driving pass a Cemetery is bad enough. As if we constantly need to be reminded that we aren't on this earth for too long.

We spend more time under the ground than above it. And so the little time that we do have, is suppose to be worth while. Right?

I took a deep breath and pulled over a block before the cemetery not wanting to take the chance of driving anywhere close to tombstones, while I cant really see them. Dad's sweater and smell basked around me. I felt my fingers getting numb and slid my hands in to the pockets of the sweater. 

I was surprised when my fingers slid across a smooth paper surface. I pulled it out to see a small picture with Dad and I. I didn't look older than 5 years old, my hair short and black, Dad's hair brown with no trace of aging. Our eyes were fixed on each others. I looked at him like he meant the world to me. Something was around my neck, my eyes strained to see the object in the dimly lit street. I walked until I approached another street light and stood under it staring in complete disbelief. 

         I grabbed the necklace around my neck and looked at it again before looking back at the picture. How could that be possible? Serenity just gave the necklace to me yesterday. How was it in an old photo? I turned the paper square over in my hand and saw Dad's small neat hand writing. 

Avete il potere di portarmi indietro

 I sighed in frustration. Italian was never a strong language of mine. I knew the words to the songs mom played around the house. I knew how to greet family members and say goodbye. But there was nothing in my brain that could translate a sentence. No similarities to Spanish or French that I was slightly better in. I slid the photo back in to the sweater pocket and continued on to Dad's tombstone. 

I held on to the few roses i was by, pulling them off their stems and carrying them with me. By the time I was even close to Dad's grave, small petals were all that were scattered in my hand.

I could pick out his tombstone in the hundreds it was surrounded by. My knees began to buckle underneath me as I pulled closer to it and when my eyes met his name everything in me gave out. 

I felt the tears begin to gather at the sides of my eyes. 

"Come on." I warned myself biting back the emotions welling up in me. 

The grave seemed to pull me to the floor. I sat to the side of his stone and scattered the red rose petals sloppily on his grave. 

"There you go Dad. I haven't forgotten about you." I mumbled to what I hoped was his spirit. 

"I love you." I said letting the warm tears trickle down my cheeks. I sniffled once attempting to hold back but my breath was caught in the back of my throat. Memories of him created a slide show of flashbacks. Him teaching me how to ride a bike, how he got up every morning, made his coffee and kissed mom like his life depended on it. As if he hasn't seen mom for a decade. Mom always protested or complained but as soon as he left you could see the bright red of her cheeks and a smile that wouldn't and couldn't go away. 

I broke in to small sobs, placing my head in my hands. I lost control of myself heaving everything that I had been holding hostage. Freeing my feelings. I gasped and cried again and gasped and coughed. 

The cold tombstone pressed against my back had never felt so comforting. 

"I love you too son." I imagined his voice that I could never forget as long as I lived. A voice that only differed slightly in tone from mine. 

I sighed deeply slowly coming back to myself. I pulled Dad's hood over my head and brought my knees to my chest. The night began to get colder but I couldn't leave. I relaxed my head against the cold stone and fell asleep. I fell asleep in the middle of the Whitestone Cemetery. 

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