Conversations with “The Father” (part 4)
Do you ever feel as though you’ve said everything you’ve wanted to say?
The nightly bells and chimes from St Luke’s Church echoed through the “Forever Mist” but the time was as unimportant as the news reports that regularly filtered through the airwaves in the year 2031. The blanket grey mist was here to stay according to the talking heads on the television and they had as much of an explanation for this as they did the curfews and lockdowns that had been in place since 2028. Perhaps it had been longer, but time was invisible, memories were a precious commodity, revolutions were fomented and quelled and by the sound of the daily siren, all was quiet under a mist that never lifted in a world standing still.
Breaking the silence on this cold and frosty evening were the hoots and lonely sounding songs coming from the owls in the trees that lined the far side of the river. The Stranger smiled at these faint sounds as he did the click-clacking footsteps on the bridge high above him. He knew it was The Father, his old friend from a time since forgotten, but not from the sound of his footsteps. He sensed it was his friend. He intuitively knew it was him, and long before he descended the steps to join him on the riverside bench.
The Stranger: “I see you’re breaking curfew again, Father!”
The Father: “Rules were made to be broken, Son and, call me an old fool on the hill, but I knew you’d be here this evening. I have no way of explaining this for it to be true or for you to believe me but I sensed you wanted to talk about something and I feel that burning pain deep in your soul. So I had to be here this evening. Cigarette?”
The Father flicked two smokes from the cavernous pockets of his black trench coat and before The Stranger could respond he’d already snapped his lighter into a flame that temporarily illuminated the gloomy mist surrounding them. He held it far longer than even he anticipated as his old friend was already lost in a tear filled world as he gazed at the bridge. The Father waited, silently, until his old friend beside him wiped more than a few rogue tears away with the sleeve of his jacket, smiled half-heartedly, muttered a jumble of largely incoherent words and then thanked him for the light through a plume of cigarette smoke that joined the mist swirling overhead.
The Stranger: “Do you ever feel as though you’ve said everything you’ve wanted to say?”
The Father: “How do you mean, Son?”
The Stranger: “That you’ve written every word you want to share? Every word as anonymous as the next. Every thought now best kept to yourself. That you…that you’ve shared your sadness with people that can’t hear it anymore, can’t help you anymore, and even if you reach out for others to listen, others to help, you’re so lost and alone with everybody anyway?”
The Father dragged long and hard on his cigarette as his deepest fears surfaced. He knew he had to be here this evening. Later he’d tell himself that he felt a horrible bubble in his stomach just knowing that his friend was in so much pain but he couldn’t say as much now. They’d been friends since long before the mist descended and knew each other inside and out, upside and down. He also knew his friend would likely dance around his real feelings rather than outright say them and part of him hoped this would be the case. He told himself later that he could listen, that he did listen, and he’d always be here for his friend. But he couldn’t help. He took another long drag of his cigarette as he pondered a thoughtful answer and perhaps a question or two of his own. But his old friend beat him to the punch and changed tack.
The Stranger: “I talked with someone the other day who was exactly half my age. I told him I envied him!”
The Father: “Envy was always your sin, Son”
The Stranger: “Yes, and six other evil friends lining up and waiting for their turn in the spotlight!”
The Father: “Did it help talking to this young man, Son? I’m always here for you, you know that. I just wish…”
The Stranger: “I know, Father. I know. Did it help? Not really. Does anything help? Not really. I have to face the unfaceable and when you have a face like mine, it’s doubly difficult. Fuck. I look in the mirror and I wonder where I cast the shell of my own shadow these days, let alone my face”
The Father: “I see you haven’t lost your self-deprecating, sarcastic humour, Son. Still using it as a self-defence mechanism or should I say, believing that you are?”
The Stranger: “It would seem so, Father”
The Father: “How’s that working out for you, Son?”
The Stranger: “Not as successfully as it once was. Or so it seems”
The Father: “Facing the unfaceable sounds the tallest of orders, Son. The highest of mountains to climb…”
The Father reached across the bench to give his old friend a reassuring hug or simply a pat on the shoulder, but through the gloom all he could find was the condensation trail on the bench where he’d been sitting, his cigarette a smoldering butt on the floor. “Let’s walk across the bridge and sit on the fishing platform” said a voice behind him, already walking away. “I love watching the ripples in the river”. So do I, mused The Father.
So do I.
By the time The Father had risen from the bench and turned around The Stranger had already ascended the steps and was well on his way to the bridge. “Alone with everybody” he said aloud yet almost silently too. He’d repeat this phrase to himself later and when remembering his thoughts as he too climbed the steps toward the bridge, following in the footsteps of his oldest friend. Alone with everybody, but not with me he’d assure himself. But alone with everybody else and perhaps, alone even with the stranger hiding underneath his own skin. He watched his old friend walk across the bridge as the bells chimed for an hour in a timeless world devoid of shadows. He saw his own, a sliver peering through the misty gloom, but not his friend’s. He wasn’t walking that far ahead of him and it was incredibly difficult to see anything at any kind of distance in this concrete grey gloaming. But no shadow? This thought was quickly lost as the owl song returned, puncturing the eerie silence, the beauty of an unseen real world that forever pleased The Father and which followed him through the canopy of trees in pursuit of his old friend and on through to their favourite spot on the river where even on the gloomiest of nights the moon cast a faint shadow of her own in the beautiful reflections of a shimmering river.
“I saved you a spot Father!” joked The Stranger and with the sort of smile that always gladdened the heart of The Father he enthused “The way the moon manages to just pierce this damn mist and illuminate the bridge never grows old, does it old friend?”. The Father agreed heartily as he joined his friend on the wooden fishing platform, sank to his bottom in the far corner of the platform, stretched his legs, and fished around inside his coat for a couple of smokes. Later and walking across the platform and lighting their cigarettes, The Father saw his friend’s face fully for the first time this evening. He’d known this man for more years than either cared to remember but there was something very different in the flickering flame of his cigarette lighter this evening. Later he’d repeat aloud his friend’s phrase of earlier: “Alone with everybody”. Later still, he couldn’t stop thinking of his friend’s eyes.
They looked hollow, sullen and utterly lost.
The Stranger: “Remember our summer’s sitting on this platform, Father?”
The Father: “What, the two men who never fished in their lives spending their every waking hour sat on a fishing platform watching the world go by? Waving to the tourists. Singing along to the chimes from the church bells. Having the best seat in the house. Always a bag of bread for any passing ducks. Wishing the sun would never set but then watching it in awe and excited to return here the very next day?”
The Stranger: “Remember what I said to you when I got rather emotional on one of our first times here?”
The Father: “There were many of those particular first times, Son. But yes, I do. You said this was the time of your life and you didn’t want to share this with anyone but me”
The Stranger: “What if those times were over, Father?”
The Father: “Well Son, due to this damned mist, they are. But tomorrow never knows what the future holds…”
The Stranger: “It’s not just the mist, Father. Those times here, my time, our time, is over”
The Father: “As I say, Son, tomorrow never knows…”
The Stranger: “You’re not listening to me, Father. This place is me. This place is us. Tomorrow does know. Tomorrow frightens me. Tomorrow is coming. Tomorrow…”
The Father: “Son…”
The Stranger: “Do you know something, Father? When I took my son home earlier before the curfew, he said “see you tomorrow” and do you know what I’ve been thinking about for months and years on end now? That soon he’ll say the exact same thing, the same thing he’s said every other day for years now and soon, there won’t be a tomorrow. For him there will be. For you. For any and everyone you care to mention. But not for me. I can’t bear to live anymore with the failure who doesn’t even cast a shadow in my own reflection. I can’t keep facing a tomorrow so full of pain, a pain I reflect on my own son, a son who looks at me like I’m a ghost haunted by my own inadequacies, fearful of what I’ve become. Lost. Lonely. Full of dread for tomorrow because today was bad enough. Yesterday too. Then there’s another tomorrow. And tomorrow does know because I know. And I can’t face any more tomorrow’s”
The Father clambered to his feet on the far side of the fishing platform, looked to the heavens for the shards of moonlight piercing the mist surrounding them and dragged as hard as perhaps he ever had on what he was determined would be the last cigarette he’d ever smoke. He had so much to say but words were of little use. He just wanted to give his old friend a hug.
Peering through the misty gloom and walking to the far side of the platform, he saw he was alone. No condensation trail or even the merest sign of where his old friend had been sitting.
Just the barely smoldering remains of a half smoked cigarette.
Thanks for reading. I’ve played around with these two characters for years now and although this is part 4, I’m no nearer to making this a fuller, broader or longer story. There’s a twist (but now I’ve said there’s a twist that kind of ruins it, but you can see the twist if you really want to see it) and feel free to play around with these characters if you wish and when you pen the longer story and make your millions, please send me some magic beans as a royalty thank you.
Or treat yourself to this book…
"My Ironbridge Summer" - link to Amazon