Let's write some short stories, guys!

[rickythecat]

I'll start. I sort of wrote this on the spot, so it might be a bit unpolished, but here goes...

 

"Scrapyard"

 

My father raised me in a scrapyard, and I never knew my mother. Whenever I asked about her, my father would call her a angel and swear and drink some more. If he was already bothered, he would hit me. I learned very young that mother was not a suitable topic for conversation. Actually, there weren't many topics at all that I would ever speak to my father about.

 

I hated my father; I suppose that's the best way to begin my story. I didn't hate him because he dranks and swore and would beat me senseless, I didn't hate him because he made me work in the yard and only paid me in "meals" that were more like scraps, and I didn't hate him because he would use the the only mattress in our makeshift scrap-hut to hide his drugs and shoot his heroin and sleep with his cheap whores. No, I didn't hate him for those things, because those are only manifestations of his true self, his inner being. That's the part I hated. I hated my father, not for the things he did, but for the man he was. They say that children are predisposed to feel loyal to their parents, no matter how poor their treatment is. I wanted to kill my father.

 

It was one of the few things that kept me going sometimes, to be honest. The thought of his expression as I stuck some found blade into his chest, the thought of him squirming under a toppled car-heap. The thought of the mattress catching fire while he was passed out from drink. Thoughts like those kept me alive and sane. Day in and day out, under the overbearing sun, sifting through piles of rusty metal for anything worth selling, while he sat, fat and useless, under a filthy awning he had made with a sheet he had stolen. He would often mock me, and ask me how hot the sun was, or if I'd burnt my hands on anything, and then he'd laugh. I wasn't allowed to ignore him. I was very young when I learned that too. I wanted to kill my father.

 

At some point, and I can't really say when, the emotion evolved, in a way. It changed from a nonspecific outlet for my hatred into something more... focused is the word I want to use. I think it was the sun. You think differently when the sun is on your back. When you're standing there, in the red dust, towers of ruined cars and mountains of scrap iron radiating black heat on you from all directions, it feels like time has stopped. But I had a way to make it start again. I had a way to make those countless hours in the yard seem so insignificant, so simply routine. This was, of course, my fantasizing. Thoughts of murder. Thoughts of justice. And you can only think so long of such things before thought longs for action. And I was prepared.

 

Like I said, my thoughts evolved. Even once I had made my resolution, there was still the matter of my methods. Of course, my will was weak at first. I contemplated suicide. I don't want to say how many times. I knew that, without me, my father would simply drink himself to death in some gutter somewhere, poor and miserable. It seemed fitting. But I realized eventually that it wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't send my message. It would make me weak, just like him. Most importantly, I wouldn't be able to see his face when it happened. So I planned and pondered day after day what I could do that could ever possibly exact justice upon my father. Then one day, out among the scrap, I tripped, and nearly fell on a rusted, shattered boxspring. And I remembered. I knew what I had to do. I knew that I had to do something that I learned very young not to do.

 

It's called tetanus. It's a sickness you get when you're cut by rusty metal. My father would sometimes warn me about it. It's slow, agonizing, and without treatment or vaccination, it is fatal. I don't think my father has ever even been inside a doctor's office. Not that he could afford it anyway. By the time my father would realize he was infected, it would probably be too late. But that's not the best part. What sealed the deal, what convinced me of this method's virtue, were the symtoms of the disease. It contorts the body, especially the face. In his final moments, my father would have a look on his facelike he was laughing. Just like how he mocked me from his awning. It was fate. It was perfect. And with this, my plan began to truly take shape.

 

Last night, my father died in his sleep. Maybe it was a heart attack. Maybe it was a stroke. Maybe it was just because he treated his body like a garbage disposal. It... it doesn't really matter. He died in his sleep. I never laid a finger on him. He's dead. He escaped. I was too weak. I waited too long. I never got my justice. He just went to sleep one night and left me here, alone, in the sun, as always.

 

But that's not the worst part. You want to know what the worst part is?

 

He died smiling.