Metallic

Short story/opening for a novel

METALLIC 

I was eleven years old when I killed my father. I should have known something was wrong when I noticed his car parked in the driveway. I had just gotten off the school bus and my dad always worked till the evening.

                I entered the house and crossed over to the kitchen. As I took off my backpack, I called out for my father. Instead of hearing his rough, husky voice, I was greeted with a crash. It wasn’t a loud noise, not like a vase had broken; it was a muffled crash, almost the thump of someone falling.

                I jumped out of my chair and raced upstairs, screaming for my father. I found him in my bedroom. I almost didn’t notice him; my room appeared normal and untouched, but from the corner of my eye I saw a hand sticking out from the side of my bed.

                My father was in his work clothes, a gray suit and a navy tie. His brown hair was disheveled and his face was red and sweaty. But none of that mattered because in the center of his chest, sticking up proudly like a flag was the handle of a knife.

                It’s a funny feeling, being confused. Your mind begins racing with so many thoughts and scenarios, trying to put the pieces together like a puzzle.  It’s like your brain is no longer in control of your mouth, and you’re trying to find the right thing to say. As I stood there, staring down at my father, all I could muster was a cry of, “What did you do!” which was a stupid question because it was extremely clear what he had done to himself.

                My father’s eyes slowly flickered opened and met mine with a mirrored look of confusion, as if he too was wondering what he had done. My hands found its way to the handle, wrapping around it tightly till my knuckles stung. “You’re okay,” I whispered. “You’re going to be okay.”

                Empty words, empty meanings; I was mostly saying it to console myself. With a quick yank, I tugged on the knife, feeling it break free from flesh. I held it in the air for a moment, a crimson weapon that seemed to hold my father’s life.

                The whimper that escaped my father’s lips was small and soft. His chest began heaving rapidly, as if he was trying to take in as much air as he possibly could. But the blood seeping from his chest in a heavy flood meant that no amount of inhales would save him. I dropped the knife, the sound of it slamming against the floorboards echoed off my ears as my father’s eyes rolled back in his head.

                My mother found me like that, curled up in the hot, sticky pool surrounding my father with the metallic smell being shoved up my nose.

                My father was declared dead from suicide. He left no note, no reason why he gave up on his family. Autopsy revealed that his stab to his chest wasn’t what killed him, but rather the tugging of the knife as it made a diagonal slice on an important artery on its way out of my father’s chest…

I was later interrogated, a bunch of questions thrown at me from my mother who never thought to console an eleven year old child. “Why do you think he killed himself? What did we do wrong?”

It’s an odd experience watching someone grow distant from you. My mother became merely a cold figure who moped about the house with fewer and fewer words to say to me. And all I could do was wonder; wonder about life, about the afterlife, about death…

Years later, I could feel myself drifting away from everything in the world. And when the pain became too great, I took a razor and slit two perfectly straight lines on my wrists.

I didn't want to die. I had sat on the bathroom floor, watching the blood well up from the cut in big thick bubbles, and wondered if anyone was going to save me. Wasn't anyone going to open the door and stop the bleeding?

                I was never close to my father, so why was my chest so heavy? Why did I feel empty, like my heart had shrunken until I grew numb from depression?

                Maybe it was the realization that the only moment my father and I ever made eye contact, was when I was gripping the blade I used to kill him.

The End