Title: They are the Only Real Things in This World
Summary: You watch them fade as you leave the room and you realize they are the only real things in the world.
A/N: Written for the awesome wizenedcynic for some stupid livejournal thing in about 20 minutes. Completely unbetaed but I was informed to post it anyway.
They are the Only Real Things in This world
You stop by the mailbox and grab its contents as you trudge through the door after spending the daylight hours in your office at Temple Emanuel. You still find it ironic, how you can spend hours on end counseling the members of your congregation, telling them how to solve their problems and live their lives when you can't even manage to straighten out your own home.
As you take your coat off and hang it on the post by the door, you spot your wife asleep on the couch in the den. "Asleep" is probably the wrong word; you figure "so piss drunk she can't even hold her eyes open" is probably a more apt description. But instead of going over and making sure everything is all right, you simply thumb through the mail as you head to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. While gulping down the ice cold liquid, a thick envelope catches your attention. You remove it from the stack of bills and solicitations to take a closer look. Your daughter's name appears in bold print just above your address. You wonder who would be sending her anything so you check the return address.
You're not surprised to see there isn't one. You know your daughter has a tendency to sign up for…questionable political mailing lists. You don't think she'd ever do anything wrong; in fact you're pretty sure she's still trying to figure out who she is and what she truly believes. At least that's what you tell yourself when she starts rambling about how the world would be better off with no governments and rules and you find yourself hoping that she never learns how to make a bomb.
For some reason, you decide to take the letter upstairs and leave it in her room. You don't normally do that with the mail. You're never usually home in time to get the mail. But tonight, you trudge up the stairs and slowly approach the door at the end of the hallway. You gently shove it open by pressing on Nelson Mandela's forehead, and thank G-d that she decided to replace the Pennywise poster you're pretty sure she put there just to freak you out.
You step into the room and it feels foreign to you, even though you've been there several times. It's the same room she's had since birth. The same room where you used to rock her to sleep while your wife sat in the dark living room. The same room where you would read her Curious George and stay up with her until four in the morning protecting her from the Gollum. You missed it sometimes, wished you could take back all of the mistakes you've made since then. But she's grown up well, you tell yourself, and she has. As you go over to her desk, you notice a purplish rock sitting on her shelf. It's been there for awhile, and you have a pretty good inkling as to who it came from. You're glad it came from him; he's good for her because you've seen her smiling more since he's been around. She always had a lovely smile.
You lay the thick envelope down on the corner of the desk next to her computer. On the other side, you notice the little sock monkey you gave her for her seventh birthday. You remember how she used to carry it with her. How she would tell it about all of the things you never had time to listen to her say. It was her best friend, if so much could ever be said about a stuffed animal. You pick it up and hold it in your hand, letting yourself remember a time when your daughter didn't hate the world, or you. You're not completely sure she hates you, but sometimes you wouldn't be surprised if that were the fact.
You set the old toy back in its place and head for the door. You take one last look at your surroundings. So much has changed and yet so much hasn't. As you flip the light off, you can almost see the shadows of a younger, happier man scooping a hyperactive little girl into his arms. "Daddy," she says, "I wanna be a rocket ship when I grow up!"
"You can be whatever you want, Sweetheart," he says, not having the heart to tell the girl she couldn't actually be an aeronautic travel vessel.
You watch them fade as you leave the room and you realize they are the only real things in the world.