Short Stories

Like Father, Like Daughter

A/N: This piece was written for a school assessed task, the prompt was 'Conforming to the needs of a group can stifle your true identity'. I hope you enjoy!

Inescapable toxins filled the struggling lungs of the small child, a plume of thick smoke enveloping her existence, a halo of hazardous gases. Her blonde hair turned dirty, her eyes darkened, her pink frilled dress fading. The presence of the young girl was unnoticeable to the elders who stood to either side of their daughter's slim frame. The 5 year old girl on the television screen bared her teeth, perhaps in attempt to resemble a smile, perhaps attempting to bring attention to her yellowing teeth. As the three figures waved at the camera, the multicoloured screen faded. Over the course of multiple years, mother was replaced by a cloud of smoke coming from my struggling lungs, replicating my father's own.

The room became dull, lacking the luminescence of the television. My head lulled to the left, as I lay on the scum ridden rug in the centre of the living room. My eyes caught sight of the glistening spittle falling from my father's mouth, his heavy exhale causing a vibration through his collapsing single seater couch, startling the empty bottle, sat beside his feet.

My eyes scanned the room, skipping over the photograph of my mother and I, a woman who triggered creative thoughts and empowering ideas, daily. Her removal from my life was to ensure she could remain vibrant, ostracise herself from a situation my younger self had no control over. My elder self embraced the solutions to these problems, that she had left with my vapid father and I. A solution based on substances. Distant from my mother's elegance and education, I began to absorb the adjusted behaviours of my disintegrating dad. I would've chosen another pathway, prior to the rabbit hole I began to fall, full speed, spiralling, down in. If I had placed faith in myself, if I had veered from the path that was previously paved, by the man and woman I addressed as my parents.

Escaping my thoughts, I set my eyes on my prize. My eyes stare at the substance that will blindly bewilder my brain for the following forty eight hours. Instantaneously, all limbs clamber from the floor, to a slouched standing stance, uncoordinatedly stumbling forwards. My fingers grasp at the clear bag, containing compounds intended for my father's use. One man's treasure is another man's secondhand treasure. My feet carry me to the bathroom, my shaking hands meeting with a steady door handle. The cold tiles of the somewhat sanitised bathroom sting my bare feet. I close the window, removing the chance of adequate ventilation. I slide to the floor, the sting of the cold tiles moves to my ass. The comfort of the cold, of the enveloping feeling of emptiness, mimics the absence of my entire self. I carefully open the seal of the plastic pocket, laying the powder parallel to my legs. The dark tiles contrast the colour of the drugs. I watch as the vibration of vacuous footsteps force the dusty framed words on the back of the door, "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul" to shake.

I would've assumed that my father was intending to resume his sleep in his bedroom, but as his voice began to boom, and the frame fell, my body became brilliantly upright in a moment of seconds. Shattered glass was scattered across the floor, the illicit drugs coated the callouses of my hands before drowning in the material of my back pocket.

"Yes father?" I asked innocently. The innocence of the question was lost in translation as I saw his furious facial expression. Anger coursed through his veins, his pulse practically pounced out his forehead. I did not take any chances. I began to move, stimulated by an illegal stimulant, each second my vessels filled with the power of this powerful drug. I weaved past his weak frame, racing down the hallway, and ducking behind the dirty couch he was sat on minutes ago. His favourite pillow, embroidered with "be the change you want to see in the world," had been disregarded, dumped behind the seat I squatted beside. His movements were much more delayed, the effects of his last consumed narcotic wearing off.

His deep voice began to construct insulting phrases, "your mother left because of you!" Which did not bother me, as I was aware that her absence was not entirely either of our faults. She had realised her potential; resulting in her removing her realist self from our difficult, delirious lives. Being left with an alcoholic and aggravated father did not improve my state of imagination or delirium. It's impact was quite the opposite, and as my hands trembled, thinking of how to consume the product securely stashed in my pocket, I realised that my father avoided the state of reality for the same reason I had for 5 years, because his potential was never realised. Our minds avoided the one state we could not stand, the state of reality. He shadowed my mother's actions, as I shadowed his. Like father, like daughter. He did not discover himself, he discovered how to recreate another person, a human with inhuman thoughts, a person with no personal views. An individual incapable of performing and contributing as an individual, too capable of contributing to his daughter's faulty future.

~
*April2016