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It’s a waste of a life but it’s all I have.
That shit never bothered me so much when mom was here. She made even the crappiest of moments bearable. I didn’t care that I was poor or about the impending future that awaited me. I didn’t care about any of it since mom gave me room to simply be a kid and enjoy my childhood, free of all obligations and concerns. Even though I’m only fifteen years old, I feel like I’m fucking fifty, having lived more heartache and suffering than any of the kids my age could even manage to comprehend.
And soon I won’t even have these small moments of reprieve that my mom offers.
It will only be me and my dad.
In this lonely house, going through the motions of our pathetic existence, until we meet her on the other side.
Not wanting to let that forlorn thought grow roots in my brain, I put on my headphones and start my playlist, praying that the loud, angry music will do its job of eviscerating every thought in my head. After kicking off my secondhand Jordans, I lie down on my bed. It still has the blue comforter with white sailboats that my mom bought for my tenth birthday.
“It’s to help you dream. Never give up on your dreams, kiddo,” she said when she placed it over my bed. “They might just surprise you and come true.”
There was a time where I actually believed her. I may not like the idea that I’m predestined to become a fisherman like my father, but I’ve always been enamored with the ocean. Sometimes I let myself daydream of a life where my mom waves to me from a pier, as she watches me sail off in a thirty-foot-long boat, as I go on an adventure and cross the Atlantic Ocean just to see what’s on the other side.
But that’s all it is.
A daydream.
A wish for a tomorrow that will never come.
But it’s with this elusive vision playing in my mind, that sleep comes to me and takes me under, dreaming about open skies and a tame vast ocean on the horizon. I let the dream take hold, as I live a life that is not in the cards for me. But my blissful dream is all too soon stolen away from me when I hear a distant voice call out my name.
“Noah…”
“Noah…”
“Son…”
I stir in my bed as the strangled voice successfully pulls me from my happy place and back to the darkness of my bedroom and my bleak reality. I rub the sleep from my eyes as they get accustomed to the dim-lit room, a dark shadow sitting right at the edge of my bed. It takes me a minute to focus on my father’s frame, and another minute to realize how distraught his facial features are. His eyes are swollen and red, and when he uses his forearm to clean them, I realize he’s silently crying as he stares at me.
I don’t ask him why he’s back early from his fishing expedition.
I don’t ask him why he’s in my room crying.
I don’t ask him anything.
Because I know.
I know the next words that will come out of his mouth before he’s even uttered them.
I know.
I know.
My mom is dead.
While I was dreaming of the sun on my face and the vast blue ocean all around me, she died.
It’s just as I thought.
There is no God.
She’s gone.
And all I have left now is him.
I will never dream again.
