where it begins
it isn't necessary, but you could read this one first. they aren't connected, but they are both pieces of the same story.
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A brick in each hand, pressed together in a harsh rub, a pile of grit on the floor, that grit, that is the history between my father and I. Fond is not a word I would use when I define my memories. If I were to choose one, it would be 'hard'. I couldn't tell you if there aren't any good memories or I just don't recall them. Brief bursts of light did come in the form of stories of the Monkey King, which my dad told us as children. Throughout our relationship, it was pressure, tension, resistance, anger and fear, which grew, evolving into rage, lunacy, rebellion and rejection. Recently it has come to settle on acceptance and there is a part of me that is glad for it.
As I grew older a series of unspoken rules became established. If, for example, when my father decided to lock and chain the door and I had not come home, I would need to find a place to sleep myself. This began around the age of 15. Another was that I was to blame, whether or not I was even around. Though in my tangential world blame slid off me in rivulets, pooling around my feet.
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During the clenched years there were moments that stood out like sentries marking my passage through life. They were like oases in the blurred and gritty landscape of memory.
A moment then, a window. An ancient monolith of me, slightly weathered by time.
In the infant stages of the internet, a world of BBS's and D-dials, a decision was made. It was made when friendships flared. Bonds were built on pain, on sorrow, on hope. Connections, the sinew of our relationships. And yet, friendships were also fleeting. Lifetimes passed in a night, and people faded from memory with the coming of daylight, burned away. The results of this particular decision are still etched in the place where I keep such things. It wasn't beautiful, it wasn't transcendent, but it was warm, and somewhere buried within I smile when I think of it.
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+________________________________________________
A brick in each hand, pressed together in a harsh rub, a pile of grit on the floor, that grit, that is the history between my father and I. Fond is not a word I would use when I define my memories. If I were to choose one, it would be 'hard'. I couldn't tell you if there aren't any good memories or I just don't recall them. Brief bursts of light did come in the form of stories of the Monkey King, which my dad told us as children. Throughout our relationship, it was pressure, tension, resistance, anger and fear, which grew, evolving into rage, lunacy, rebellion and rejection. Recently it has come to settle on acceptance and there is a part of me that is glad for it.
As I grew older a series of unspoken rules became established. If, for example, when my father decided to lock and chain the door and I had not come home, I would need to find a place to sleep myself. This began around the age of 15. Another was that I was to blame, whether or not I was even around. Though in my tangential world blame slid off me in rivulets, pooling around my feet.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the clenched years there were moments that stood out like sentries marking my passage through life. They were like oases in the blurred and gritty landscape of memory.
A moment then, a window. An ancient monolith of me, slightly weathered by time.
In the infant stages of the internet, a world of BBS's and D-dials, a decision was made. It was made when friendships flared. Bonds were built on pain, on sorrow, on hope. Connections, the sinew of our relationships. And yet, friendships were also fleeting. Lifetimes passed in a night, and people faded from memory with the coming of daylight, burned away. The results of this particular decision are still etched in the place where I keep such things. It wasn't beautiful, it wasn't transcendent, but it was warm, and somewhere buried within I smile when I think of it.
Comments
i'd hoped you were doing ok.