The Final Days
We had just finished breakfast on a relaxing sunday morning. My son jumped up from the table, and I knew that something was wrong. He said that he was going to help Uncle Axel with a steam engine, but I knew that something was different. He kept avoiding my eyes, and so I made a plan. After he went out, I followed him from a distance. He kept looking around him, as if suspicious that I was following him. Fortunately he didn’t see me. He was angling toward the river, where he liked to play. If there was one thing for sure, it would be that he would be getting a beating for this. I should be respected, since I own the town, I rationalized. Just as we were reaching the river, he called out.
“Sophie?” he queries. “Sophie, are you here yet?”
When I first heard this, I thought that he had simply agreed to meet a friend here. Then I thought about it. I had never heard of a child named Sophie before, and Waknuk was a very small village. Everybody knew everybody. This made me all the more suspicious.
“Hullo David,” calls a voice from the woods. “I’m just wading into the river. It’s very nice and cool,”
“Hi Sophie,” David says. “Aren’t you not supposed to take your shoes?”
“Well, I can make exceptions,” she says. “We’re the only people here,”
Not for long, I think. Then, the meaning of that sinks in. What does he mean, not supposed to take off your shoes? My mind instantly went to my brother. He was a mutation, a deviation. No son of mine socializes with deviations. I present myself. As soon as my son see’s me, he shouts.
“French cameos!”. Instantly, the unseen voice is replaced with the pattering of feet.
“Who was that?” I ask. “Why couldn’t she take off her shoes?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” David replies.
I know that he is lying this time.
“ I know that you’re lying,” I state.
“Prove it.” he replies.
I have never heard such rebelliousness from him.
“What are French Cameos?” I ask again. “They must be some kind of code word,”
“What are French Cameos?” he says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you feeling okay?”
I can’t fathom how he keeps denying these things. He seems to think that I am stupid. I’ll show him.
“I know that I heard you say those things,” I state.
“As I said,” said David, “Prove it,”
Then the realization hits me. I literally have no proof. I tried to find some footprints, but all I could see were the faint depressions from yesterday. David is smiling smugly in the most annoying way possible.
“Find anything?” he says sarcastically
Regretfully, I tell the truth. “No.” I say. “I didn’t.”
With this he smiles even wider.
“I’m glad he had this conversation,” he said. “Have a nice day at the farm,”
That is the first look that I had at David’s true feelings towards deviations, lying, and oddities. No wonder he was such good friends with Axel. I tried to catch him at it again, but he was always more wary. I never caught him, and it became an obsession. Now, I am on my deathbed, and I regret all the time wasted. This is my last letter to my family, and more specifically, my son.
La Fin
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