Dreamcatcher

He drifts, as he notices the dreamcatcher fall off the precarious edge it was hanging off of. A trapped dream escapes.

His breaths are deep, his face relaxes. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. Quite honestly, he breaths quite noisy. One can hear the air moving in his nose. His jaw, as always, is clenched. He grinds his teeth in his sleep; disturbing noise. The dream swirls in his neurons.

Distant memory.

Music. Purple and pink neon lighting. Keep on dancing. He sees the brick walls, and traces them with his hand. When’s dad coming to pick him up? The man scratches his beard with the hand not on the wall. His dad should be here by now. It’s raining violently outside. He doesn’t want to walk all the way to bus stop. It’s November for christ’s sake. It’d be freezing. He pulls his phone out of his pocket. He still kept his father on speed dial then.

“Dad? Where are you?”

The words on the other end are slurred. Blurred. Burned at the edges and drenched in foam. He can’t make it out.

“Dad? Are you drunk?”

“A coupl’ beer don’t mea-n I’m drun’”

“Dad!”

“‘M outside.”

He sighs. He picks up the case with the bass and goes outside. His dad hiccups in the front seat, dizzy and sick. The man pulls his dad out of the front seat and leads him to the passenger; sits down in the front and drives them home.

The dream blurs. Scene changes. They walk into a dark cold house, and his sweater provides scant protection. There’s yelling, there’s screaming, he can’t tell who. He couldn’t tell who then. He hears f***s and s***s and swears and impressions of words. The feelings of words. He can feel the way they sting.

A burning on his cheek, a yank at his beard, the crack of a fist hitting bone. He stumbles. He can feel his bladder suddenly pressing; stomach clench; his breath catch and hold, the stunned silence that strikes his brain. He straightens himself, and walks through the dark, cold house to his room.

He’s going to move out.

Dream gives way to inky darkness. To the time portal of sleep.

His father creeps into the room. He sits on the edge of the bed. He looks at the pillbox, the neat rows of Monday to Sunday, containing two pills each. He. He. He. He.

He remembers the way he cried when the boy was born. He remembers the way he failed him countless times. Is he deserving of he?

The boy has a beard. And he has his father’s eyes, and his father’s lips, and his father’s nose. The colour of his hair, a deep brown, also comes from his father. His body is tensed. His hands are clenched in fists. His eyebrows are drawn together. A sob chokes through him. His son cries often in his sleep now.

The darkness of the room is silencing. The only illumination comes from the lights of the city, outside the window. His son took him in. It’s raining. He can’t sleep. He wants his son back. Back for real. He wants the days when they played hockey together, the days they went to Tim’s to celebrate their team’s winning of the Stanley Cup, or his son’s team winning of a championship trophy.

The son, for all his resemblance of the father, also inherited his insanity, his personality, his way of walk and talk; as if genetics skipped his mother’s part altogether (though he has her laugh, and her short temper). Depression paints his world dark blue.

A shout. A jolt. Tears down his face. Gasps for air. Beard wettened, shirt askance, sweat stains. The son is perturbed.

“C’mere.”

He hugs his son.

His son pushes away.

The dreamcatcher lies unnoticed on the floor. Unknowing of the pain it inadvertently caused its owner.