I Wish
I wish you were a drunk. Some beer bellied asshole who lays in his recliner all day, stained T-shirt collecting crumbs while your latest girlfriend works all day at some Laundromat just so you can steal her check out of her purse. I wish you were an unshaven pervert living off a highway at motel 8, a truck stop whore stealing your wallet while you lay dying of overdose. I wish I could be ashamed of you. Wish you were some deadbeat father who never calls or sends child support.
But your not. You're a perfectly respectable man, a job, a nice house on a nice street in a nice part of the city. A new wife. Young, from the looks of it. At least younger than Mom. A dog. And a son you can be proud of.
I wish he was stupid. Or a coward still afraid of the dark. I wish counselors and teachers were always calling to tell you what a problem child he is. But he's not that. He's smart. In the advanced classes. He's strong, and talented. Top of his class in Kendo, a talented musician. And independent on top of all that he doesn't need friends. Doesn't want them. He's deluded himself into thinking that for him, making friends is a challenge. Makes up a little story that because you're always moving he can't. Everyone strives for him to like them. He's that dark, mysterious character every girl lusts for and every boy wishes to be. He mourns for a three year dead woman he never met. She never died. You lied. But she had to die didn't she? Had to disappear so you could go on being a martyr. Big man like you, wife dead, raising his young son all alone. Must have been a great pickup line. It doesn't matter to either of you. The perfect sob story. The truth doesn't make either of you look very attractive. You buried me too. Just about the only person left who can prove your story false. I was a necessary casualty. I doubt I ever crossed your mind all these years. Or maybe you've been looking over your shoulder all this time waiting for me to slip out of the woodwork and destroy this, perfect, life you've made for yourself. I revel in the fact that just a glance at my face could possibly leave you in ruin. I'll get the chance to drag you down to the hell you left me to rot in. You can join me, you and Kouji both; in the grave you dug for me and Mom. Grandma's grinning corpse is here too. Their dropping off like flies. The only family I've ever known. I give Mom a year. I wished all my life for a father I could never love, instead I got you.
Kouichi Kimura