lantern soul chapter 5

Timmy Biggerstick, or as his son Thomas called him Big Timmy Biggerstick. He was self-conscious? to the point that he wore a codpiece beneath his pants and walked significant strides. He was strutting big strides. He referred to his son as the "disappointment," sometimes Timmy would laugh, stopping to do a Bulgarian split squat in front of him with codpiece prominently thrust forward. As if in the challenge for the day when 16 years Thomas would do that which was necessary for his growth as a person if only because it got him assigned a therapist.

 

Taking two significant leaping steps forward, Thomas transitioned into a punt kick and left a dent in his father's codpiece. Who with a silent reserve collapsed on his side, holding what was left of his pride, and though damaged, he felt a need to assert his dominance. So he tried to scream out your still a disappointment. But instead, what came out was a high-pitched whistle, both wounded and desperate saying only "disappointment." He lay there holding himself. His son was stepping over him and going to the living room.

 

The next day when he was able to walk though slowly, painfully. His balls were swollen to the size of his bulge when he was wearing the codpiece. He would call the police, who would have his son evaluated before ultimately deciding that it was in his best interest and society that he talk once a week to professionals able to deal with the kind of violent expression that came naturally to him.

 

"So," said Sara, "why did you do it?"

 

Thomas "do what?"

 

"he can't have children any more children if he wanted to; you could show a little remorse?"

 

Thomas then told her that his father called him a disappointment and did Bulgarian split squats while saying derogatory things at him since he was a child.

 

"I can't even listen to only the lonely by Roy Orbison without thinking of some of the crap he has done... I walked into the kitchen on my ninth birthday, waiting for the cake he had gotten. When he came out of the kitchen, Roy's song was blazing through my bones as my father walked forward with a cake that had my picture on it with the words disappointment embroidered over my head on the cake. When I started to cry, he said, there is nothing you can do about it, loser." Thomas was shaken as he was forced to recall this story for his therapist.

 

Ultimately he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. And now, just a month after Sara had left. He found himself swallowing all of his meds again. he talked with her once a week for three years.

 

He had tried it before, but his father said he was a crying wolf when he found out. It would have ruined your internal organs if you did it seriously, he told him.

 

Thomas lay in the bathtub feeling the fog descend over his consciousness. The last thing he did before passing out felt the warm water submerge his face.

 

Abra woke up not long after this. Unsure of many things yet still grateful that her god forgives. Though that was the last time she dreamed of Thomas.