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Decorum
November 9, 2006 in 299 Words, Books, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, novels, Poetry, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Death, Destiny, Eulogy, Funeral, Grief, Loss, Madness, Scream, Trauma | by davidbdale | 6 comments
All I wanted when he died was to scream. My family restrained me with an elbow between my shoulder blades and a fistful of my hair and slammed me to the wall of the trauma room as if I were responsible or forced my nose into the metaphorical stink of it all. Or. They stroked my head and cooed their little sounds of peace until my blood unboiled. It was their collective opinion that this was not the time, nor was the hospital, nor was the funeral home, the place for my hysterics. Men die was their position. The doctors and those masquerading as doctors impose a frank decorum to serve the natural course of things. Each life plays out of a length of twine, brother. Some snap early; some fray. Yours is still playing out. His was the length it was meant to be, because it was the length it was. You will restrain yourself, or submit to restraint, or be placed in restraints as a matter of course. We have a service to conduct. Friends have gathered to pay their respects. They require and they shall have the somber music Dad requested. Your selfish outburst, if you have it here, will play badly and reflect badly on us all. Escort yourself instead to the powder room tucked between the rooms stuffed with other families’ corpses; sputter your protests there and blow your nose in your hand. Your eulogy will be brief and respectful, with allowances for your notorious irreverence, it may poke gentle fun at the departed and startle the mourners into reluctant laughter, but you will not scream. Back in these rooms though, my outbursts are counted, measured, studied and admired. I am a mild case within these walls where, when I’m not screaming, they worry.
Copyright © 1999
The Childhood He Never Had
November 8, 2006 in 299 Words, Books, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, novels, Poetry, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Abuse, Child, Childhood, Forgive, Memory, Regret, Son, Therapy | by davidbdale | 3 comments
At 26, with the assistance of a team of highly-motivated psychological facilitators spending down a healthy post-doctoral research grant, he began to retrieve repressed memories of abuse he had suffered as a five-year-old child. In truth, his age at the time of the abominations is a conjecture, derived from a guess at the height from which he recalls having cowered before his tormentors. Any detailing of the boy’s humiliations would be prurient beyond the scope of our purposes here and likely would violate the rights of his publisher, but on the basis of just one batch of unsubstantiated accusations, which the team felt obligated to report to authorities, the boy’s parents were investigated, ostracized by family and lifelong friends, driven from their jobs, home and neighborhood. Their son’s retrieved memories were vivid, compelling, utterly incontrovertible. Regrettably, we can say no more about them here than that they featured a basement location, both parents, masked or hooded strangers with sharp objects, and a donkey or a drawing of a donkey. A second, more resourceful team of therapists helped resolve these memories to closely coincide with the actual layout of the split-level home of the boy’s childhood. To no avail did the parents insist they never had a basement. The “subterranean” abominations are now understood to have been suffered in the rumpus room with its below-ground aspect. Though he has not returned home since commencing his therapy, the son professes a willingness to forgive or at least indulge the hubris that compels even the most unfit parents to reproduce. A book-length memoir of his earliest memories, which also details the love affair that blossomed, bloomed, attracted pests and ultimately withered between the young man and the therapist who championed his cause, will appear in bookstores in time for the gift-buying season.
Copyright © 1999
Very Short Novels 