Yet to be titled story.

I remember very little of my father, other than the fact that he was a harsh, brutish man that stood firmly by the "spare the rod, spoil the child" bit of logic. I can recount numerous occurances where I dipped my hand in the cookie jar, or dragged the cat up the stairs by its tail under mother's watchful eye, only to have father rang at his place of employment and have him return home pronto. He was never happy when this happened. I hid under the bed, or in the linen closet amongst mother's lily scented towels, my heart thudding uncontrollably within my small boy's chest. All was to no avail; he always found me.

As the front door downstairs opened and slammed, and his heavy boots stomped up the stairs, each one heaving audibly from the weight, I covered my nose and mouth with my hands, afraid that my breaths might somehow betray me. Father threw my door open. It slammed against the wall to the right of it, and creaked back on it's hinges. His boots emmerged into view. He paced back and forth for a few moments, before turning and walking back towards the door. I decided to chance a breath into my arm, afraid the the dust bunnies or moth balls might induce a sneeze or cough. Ah, sweet relief. I had done it! Then, he stopped, turned, and begin walking  slowly back towards the bed. He rounded the corner on the side where my feet were nearly exposed. I stopped, debating whether to move my feet further beneath the bed. My left foot trembled slightly from the uncertainty. Frozen in place, I sucked in a mouth full of air as he kneeled down, slowly reached a hand out, meaty fingers wrapping around my ankle and pulling me out of my hiding place, belt wrapped halfway around his right hand, buckle exposed.

Often times these lashings kept me walking a tight line, my hands and nose figuratively pristine, not a toe out of place. More so than not I decided to get back at mother for being such a tell all. Such was the result when I went out after a lashing and spent an hour or so rummaging about in her tulip garden. I collected pail after pail of soil and then proceeded to add water. I came upon mother's fresh laundered sheets wagging idly in the breeze and decided to put colour to white. "Tell on me..." I quietly muttered under my breath. "That'll teach you."

When a scream erupted upon mother carrying her water pail outside and coming upon the site, I made it a point to blame it on Lacey, the family mongrel. However, Lacey, being a quadrapedal animal, and having paws and such, couldn't have possibly carried "mud" to my mother's clothesline and proceeded to make human hand markings, nor could Lacey have possibly pulled the sheets down and stomped them into the dust. Well, I say she could have, but try telling mother that. I plead the fifth. I was sitting in an armchair just off of the foyer, reading the daily paper and sipping a bit of afternoon tea, when the front door opened and slammed. I raised the paper up just above eye leve and pretended to read. After confronting mother about my whereabouts and being pointed in the right direction, father emmerged into the room. He stood before me for many moments, before snatching the paper, folding it, rolling it, tucking it under the armpit and bidding that I stand, this time a briar switch in hand. Drat! I knew I shouldn't have worn shorts that day.

On the contrary, my older sister Margaret fared a bit better. She was father's pride and joy, and when he wasn't working late hours at the office, throwing himself into paperwork and bestowing all of his efforts on one of the only things he truly cared for, he was showering Margaret with gifts and affection. On days when he wasn't called home early to attend to my mishaps, he came home around nine p.m. Mother had us bathed and dressed in our nicest clothes, as we stood in the foyer awaiting his return. Dinner was served promptly afterwards, and then we were to retire to bed.

Father came through the door, briefcase in tow, removed his hat and coat and hung them on the coat rack, and turned to face us. He sat his briefcase at his feet and knelt down, turning to Margaret. "Come and give your best father a kiss on the cheek, boppit," he mused, pointing to his cheek with an index finger. Margaret obeyed, and returned promptly to her place beside me before she and mother entered through into the kitchen. Father stood, and walked towards me. He placed a hand on my shoulder as he walked by, muttering little more of an acknowledgement than "Theodore."

This was always the way of father. He rarely noticed me where a lashing wasn't concerned. My birth name was Theodore, but my mother, nannies, school teachers, and even Margaret called me Theo. Father never made this leap of compassion. In fact, I doubt it even emmerged as a notion at the forefront of his mind. He was a natural born capricorn: neat, practical, egotistical, callous, devoid of emotion, and yielding slavishly where work ethic was involved. I felt quite the opposite. I often found myself in his shadow. I was the tiny shrub, once destined for greatness, behind the great and unyielding oak, devoid of water and sunshine. After many years, what more could be produced than a young man of nineteen, fragile and unmotivated in a cruel world that is fueled and replete with cannibalistic desires.

I won't say that I became my father. We were in fact, two entirely different entities. The best way of describing it is saying that my father's shoes were positioned before me, and I was asked to put them on and fill them. At first, it was like being forced into a molding whose dimensions were not at all suitable, and I squirmed within the confines of this newly habitable prison. I suppose it was a gradual change for me, as it certainly didn't happen over night. It felt as if I went through life with a veil over my eyes, my surroundings beclouded and surreal, and one day that veil was lifted. I found that the bane of my existence was spent sitting at a desk, ball-and-chained to a stack of papers, staring out the same window, at the same city, with the same faceless drones that walked its streets day, after day, after day.

My eyes were heavy and drawn, my lips a tight line on my face, my skin greying and pallid. My face most closely resembled that of a clock, if not a broken one, worn heavily with the increase in numbers that comes year after year; the long hand of childhood moving forward ever so quickly, while the short hand of  fecundity moved backwards with a certain sluggishness. I had no expectations for my life, no aspirations. All had been lost to me at some point many years before. I was a broken down vessel that cruised through life on auto pilot. If there was but one thing that I had learned in life that was sure to stick with me from my creation until my demise, it was that life holds no secrets and death no surprise.