Freedom

He was standing on the curb. The wind was blowing strong, the air cold and biting on his bare arms and face. Rubbing his chest, he ignored the numbness that seemed to sift through his limbs, a force of its own that eased slowly up from his hands until the tiny hairs on his arms stood erect and goose bumps blemished his old skin. Old . . . yes, he was old now, but it hadn’t always been so. 

Scowling, he stepped onto the street, finally daring to cross the busy intersection. It didn’t matter that he was old though, not to him. He still held dreams in his hands, fragile though they were. He still treasured the thought of being alive. Age didn’t change that. He felt, often, that most people didn’t believe that. They saw a man grow old and somehow they saw how he was slowly stripped of his dignity, because he was a burden on the youth and was made to know it while remembering the strength he’d once possessed.

He reached the other side of the street and continued walking, his stiff arthritic limbs grinding together. Turning down an alley, he was gladdened to see that some things hadn’t changed. Trash littered the walkway and graffiti the walls. Pools of dirty water gathered in depressions put there by the passage of time, the same as they had been twenty years past. They reminded him of the overcast skies and he hoped that the rain would hold off a few days longer. His wife had loved the rain and she was one thing he didn’t care to be reminded of too often.

His shoes scuffed at the ground, his back was hunched, his shoulders rounded. He stared at the ground listlessly, as if it didn’t much matter where his feet took him. So it was that when he did finally glance up, he found the change so drastic, and so abrupt, that he paused to take it all in. Where the roads he had come from were teeming with traffic, this one was not. Huge oak trees lined the paved sidewalks, their bare branches reaching out forlornly to each other and touching tentatively the roofs of houses as if they were afraid of bothering an old acquaintance who napped after a long journey. Old like him, he thought. But as time wore on they had strengthened and he, he had grown weak, frail as the very leaves that littered the ground, dry and stiff. One step and he could crush them. Suddenly, he thought of his daughter. Why did she have to see this in him? Why couldn’t she just remember the man he had been? Why couldn’t she recognize the things he could still be?

Standing there, he closed his eyes and listened. He could hear the occasional skittering of a squirrel that was a bit behind on his winter foraging. From the park down the street came the soft clink of chains as the wind whispered to the swings. Easily, he imagined what it was like in the spring. The laughter of children, not this desolate stillness. He longed for it, for something that was capable of distracting him.
But the cold continued to seep deeper into his bones and he needed to keep moving. Opening his eyes, he began his shuffling walk once more. He had realized that his home was not far from here and that soon he would reach it.

Time stretched on, shadows lengthened, and street lights flickered on. When he turned onto an adjoining street, his lip twitched distastefully. He realized that he had somewhere in the back of his mind hoped that when he returned it would be gone, somehow wisped away with the moments he had spent there. His home still stood before him. It wasn’t very big with its squat walls and pealing paint. Tiles from the roof sprouted grass and moss and even little white flowers when the weather allowed. Some of the roofing had fallen off and lay on the ground in the high grass and weeds. A tree stood drooping in the corner of the tight yard, its bark dry and cracking. A short wrought iron fence with a creaking gate closed it off from the world. It became an oasis from order and law, especially in the sense that it was completely out of place in that old neighborhood of stately houses and well kept yards.

Yet, despite these things, despite the disrepair of the house, the disorder of the yard, it all held a certain air of beauty. It was like an abstract painting in the sense that a person had to look from a different angle to catch the true artistic achievement. He remembered a time when he would take such care to cut the grass, to white wash the walls until they gleamed in the early morning. Everything seemed so pure as the sun lighted on the grass and the dew wetted his feet as he walked the lawn. He wished he could do those things now.  He stood there looking at it, lovingly imagining the feel of nail and hammer between agile fingers again. He supposed that was why calling it a ‘home’ now wasn’t really accurate. Because a home was a place where you longed to return, a place where you felt respect and love.

“Father,” the voice was soft and worried and he turned his head in its direction. Standing just inside the doorway was a young girl. She was short and a bit too thin, and had drowsy eyes. Her hair was a drab brown, a sort of mousy color, and it was pulled back in a bun but in disarray as small wisps of it graced her high cheekbones. She was pale and looked as if she would blow away if she were to take but one step forward away from the sheltering house.  How ironic that she now cared for him when it seemed to him that it had been yesterday when he last reached out his arms to pull her to her feet when she stumbled. “Where have you been?” she said earnestly, moving away from the house with quick deliberate steps, a light nit sweater in hand. “I was on my way to look for you now… if you hadn’t showed up…”

He didn’t answer, he just looked at her, and it seemed as if his lower lip extended just slightly as if he were a little boy being reprimanded for a crime he had not committed. “What if you had gotten lost,” she went on, her voice more solid. “Who knows what would have happened to you...” She had reached him and was searching his eyes.

He did not wish to meet those eyes. They were grey as his wife’s had been and she was gone now and he didn’t want to think of that. He didn’t want to stand here in the cold and listen to her talk. He wanted to tell her that he had lived in this city for fifty years, that he knew it better than her, he wanted her to stop treating him as if he were an invalid . . . He said nothing.

“Here, Father,” she said, holding up the sweater, and he allowed her to wrap it gently but snuggly around his shoulders.
         
He followed her diligently up to the front porch, feebly pulling the sweater closer, bitterness emanating from his eyes; it had become so strong that he was incapable of controlling it. But she didn’t seem to notice. She kept walking, and as they reached the door, she pulled it open for him and quietly ushered him inside. As the door closed, he made his way over the ragged carpet to his chair. It was perhaps as old as he and was falling apart with gashes up and down the sides. He could feel the springs poking him in the back and the recliner no longer worked properly. He didn’t mind. It seemed to be the only companion left from better days.

As he mechanically sat down, mindful of creaking joints, she moved into the kitchen. She very much liked this kitchen. Though small, it had just enough room for a rusted sink which sat underneath a window stuck shut from years of neglect and looked out over the tiny yard. The counters were wood and had at one point been a forest green, but now had faded to a pale sickening color that often seemed to remind people of bile though the few friends who ever visited were too polite to say so. An old stove squatted in one corner, and spoons, pots, and pans, all of varying length, hung from the wall. In fact, the only modern accessory was the new refrigerator, an accommodation just acquired that summer at her insistence. As a child she had spent many afternoons faithfully watching her mother bake and wash. It was a place of comfort and warmth, even though the one who had made it that had already moved on in the larger scheme of things. That was the way she liked to think of it. “The larger scheme of things”, because it made her feel like even an insignificant person like herself had some sort of meaningful role in life.          

“I’ll warm you up some soup.” she called back to the living room. A reply was mumbled back, but she hadn’t heard. She didn’t much care about what he said. It wasn’t out of malice, it was just that over the last year she had adopted the role of caretaker so completely she often forgot to pay attention to anything that was not necessary for her to do her job effectively. Opening the fridge, she took out a small container filled with the soup she had made the night before and set about adding it to the stove.

As it warmed she hummed a little tune to herself, thinking that if she sounded happy she’d genuinely be so. “Father,” she called in an affected pleasant voice, “Come to the table and eat. You have some medication to take as well…”
         
Silence.

She squinted, a bit perplexed. Turning around she saw him standing there. He was haggard and drawn, his eyes wide and his pupils dilated. He blinked several times, his mouth was parted slightly, and he seemed to stand a little straighter. So distracted by these things, she didn’t notice his hands at first. One was bunched into a fist. The other had grabbed a kitchen knife and clutched it tightly. The veins in his hands stood out sharply.

“What…” and she noticed the knife. Frightened, she backed up against the counter until it dug sharply into her side. She had never been afraid of her father. Only afraid for him. It was a new sensation and she didn’t know what to do. “Father, listen to me. Put that down, you’re just not fee --“
         
“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” It was an explosion, grotesque in its suddenness. His voice was loud and courses, grating to the ears. “All I ever do is listen to YOU!” Taking a step closer, he brought the knife down across her face at a slanting angle violently opening up a large gash upon her cheek. The skin flapped, the blood sprayed, her voice shook and wailed. She fell to the ground. Grunting, he kneeled before her and laughed at seeing their positions reversed. She the helpless, he the strength.

The laughter was cold and awkward as it forced its way from his throat. He took up the knife once more, this time burying it deeply and violently in her abdomen. As it sunk in, again and again and again, he could see her moan. Her hand had flown to her wounded face and not understanding, she tired to get up and failed. She moved her lips but she couldn’t seem to get them to do what she wanted. Twisting the knife sharply to the right, he pulled it out for the last time and threw it the floor.  He quickly jumped back and watched her intently, morbidly fascinated.

Her whole body seemed to be in spasms, her eyes wide and searching . . . and like a fish that has spent too much time out of water, she slowly ceased to move. And he remained standing, staring, not daring to move from his place. His face, his hands, his shirt, his being, coated in her blood . . . and the kitchen she had so loved, violated, scarred, the floor stained red, the window streaked with it, bright in the kitchen light. The scent of blood grew as the minutes passed until it seemed to intoxicate him, fill his lungs and further contaminate him. And the knife lying silently on the ground. It seemed to plead innocence.

He wasn’t quite sure about what to do. As the surge of adrenaline waned, he turned and trudged out into the hall. He paused in there, a blank look upon his tired face. Some minutes passed before he slowly turned and walked to his bedroom. Without hesitation, he made his way to the chest of drawers and straining his crooked back, bent over to open the bottom drawer. Carefully, he extracted a photo, worn around the edges and creased down the middle.

Unwilling to make the effort to stand back up, he sat down on the torn carpet and tenderly rested the photo in the palms of his hands, gazing at it with longing. A petite girl of around 19 leaned against a handsome young man, his arm encircling her waist. Her head was tilted at a slight angle, looking up into his eyes. They had subtle, almost secretive smiles and seemed to be sharing some private joke. The world was still new, life an unknown frontier to be explored without a care.

A sob racked itself up from his throat and he was taken aback as a tears streamed down his face to gather in the ridges of his long nose before falling to leave wet stains upon his veined hands. It seemed to him that if only his wife were here everything would be right. But he would go to his daughter and ….

Realization hit him and he collapsed onto his side, clutching the photo to his chest, bunching it up in his fist.  No no no no, he moaned and moaned and moaned, utterly pathetic and helpless, paralyzed by the monstrous deed. It was not compassion for his daughter but pity for himself and all he had lost and had stolen and had failed to accomplish in a life which seemed so long and which amounted to nothing.