7 minute read
“How to End Up in Rehab Before You’re
“No.”
I stood up, smashing my knee against the table, but I ignored the pain.
“I’m not moving. This is my home. This is where I live.”
Dad stared at me with the worst look yet. Not anger. Not hatred. It was something else. Like pity or sadness. Acceptance. Defeat. I had never seen him beaten. He was never beaten. Never! But now he stared at me like he was. Why?
“Phillip. You need- “
I couldn’t look at him anymore. I couldn’t. He was supposed to be big and strong. He was supposed to never fall. He was supposed to beat this.
I ran. I didn’t even think where, but somehow, I knew where I’d end up. The darkness surrounded me, so much so that I couldn’t see in front myself. My mind was foggy, like there was something keeping me from thinking. But I wasn’t afraid of the dark, so I did what my father told me when things got bad: keep calm, and carry on. A saying made by the British during WWII, it helped me get whatever task I needed done for school, or life in general. As I walked, I felt something building in my chest, like there was a water balloon being filled inside my lungs, keeping me from breathing deep. My teeth were chattering, but I didn’t feel any cold. My head continued to wander in the fog as I wandered in the darkness, my chest growing tighter with each step.
I wanted to stop, but I found myself continuing to walk despite my best efforts. I couldn’t stop myself as my legs marched me forward into a now-crimson abyss. I saw my breath in the air, as if I were in the Arctic. Icicles dangled from the sudden ceiling, looking more like spears of war than works of nature. My breath was becoming even more rapid as my body was forced forward into the hellish cave.
That’s when I heard her.
“Phillip. Phillip? Where are you?” Her angelic voice beckoned me forward, causing me to go into an all-out sprint. I knew it couldn’t be her. There was no way it was her, but my body refused to listen to me.
Her voice grew louder with each stride, and soon, I saw her outline in the red cave, the light reflections giving off a sinister color. I tried to scream, but my mouth remained shut. Tears streamed down my face, and I saw her standing there. She was standing at her car, smiling, but darkness covered her eyes. “There you are! Now, let’s get to the clinic.” I heard the engine before I saw it. My mother turned her head, and I saw her open her mouth. I screamed, just as the car sandwiched her to her own. The last
thing I saw was a man with a bottle slumping out of the other car, before everything went as red as the snow. I woke up and rolled out of my bed onto the shaggy carpet, breathing in gasps after the memory of pain left me. My room was dark. My math lay beside my bed. I couldn’t think straight, so I just shoved it under. I had stopped crying a while ago. I wondered why. Maybe because I had cried so much in the past that there was nothing left. Maybe because I was just so tired. Maybe it was because...because I had accepted this. This nightmare as reality. It wasn’t fair.
I don’t know why, but I stood up and looked out my window, staring at the red snow. Why did it get to snow red? Why did that fantasy come true yet mine was rejected? Why did the universe choose red snow instead of my dad? Why do something so inconsequential that would be ignored by everyone after a couple days when I could’ve had a family? And why did they have to remind me of that night? That dark night of red and white.
The night when Mom...
The words had come from my mouth so many times, it was like second nature. Like it was the first thing I said when I had been born. It rolled off my tongue like sandpaper, yet I couldn’t stop saying it. Another few minutes of me staring at the cursed snow before I began putting on my boots and coat.
I looked underneath my doorframe, seeing if my father was still there. He was. His brown boots shining against the fading light of the sun. I walked back to my window and opened it. “Phillip. What are you doing?”
His voice was still stern, but I could never unhear the crack from this morning.
The rage came like an earthquake. Sudden and without warning.
“You said we would be a family. That everything would go back to normal. That we would have breakfast together again. That Mom would be ok. That you would be ok. But it was all a lie. A lie!” I choked up, the tears coming again, letting the cold bite my cheeks as they fell. He didn’t speak for a minute, until I heard his cracked voice come again, crying that I had never heard before echoing from his mouth into my ears.
“I’m so sorry...I’m so sorry Phillip...I wanted it to be true...I wanted it to be true so much...but...it’s not... please come out...please talk to me...please...” I looked back to the snow. Its color mocking me. Challenging me. Then, my mind was invaded by his cries. His quiet yet potent sobs. I looked to the door, then back to the snow.
I thought what going into that bloodied snow would cost me. What else I would lose after everything? My own life? There was not much else to take at this point. But my father, did he deserve this? No. After
everything that had happened to him, he deserved so much more than a disobedient son unwilling to listen.
I realized then how much I had matured over my short life. The universe had tried to break me over and over, again and again, but here I still stood. It was empowering in a way, to show the world I wouldn’t bow to its cruel will. To show I could still do the right thing after everything, to show it I could still live.
I closed my window without another word, showing the snow, the universe, it would not take anything else away.
I talked with my father for a long time. It was a few more weeks before cancer finally took him. But we had so many conversations during those nights. About mom, about Aunt Jane, about my future and what I should do. The most important thing I remember his saying he was proud of me.
The snow had been called a curse since everyone had claimed to have a nightmare, except Dad never said anything about a nightmare. I never asked him, nor do I regret not knowing. He had a right to some privacy. After a month, the cursed snow disappeared with no explanation, not even melting away into a red puddle, just vanishing. I never touched it with my bare skin, obeying Dad’s last wishes.
I moved into Aunt Jane’s, and it hadn’t been as bad as I thought it would be, but the hole of my father and mother remained. Jane comforted me though, care for me like a real son. Always looking out for me like Mom and keeping on the straight and narrow like Dad. I grew up. I became a mechanic like Dad, but I wore a gas mask like he had told me to long ago. But even after all these years, I still wonder about the snow. About the nightmares. I read some reports and even a book one of my teachers had made after the incident, but I never found out anything substantive. Some conspiracy theorists said it had all been a government experiment, religious nuts said it was a sign from God, but most people couldn’t explain it, and no one else in the world had experienced it before or since. It seemed like everyone had just accepted the weather had happened, and as long as it didn’t reappear, it was best to forget. I couldn’t help but agree with them. The red snow had only caused pain to me and my town. I decided to let it go. I wouldn’t give the universe the satisfaction of keeping this in my head. Let it melt away, wherever hell it ended up in.
