0 reactions
I hated his face the first time I saw him. I feared it for many years. Then I learned the truth.
I hated his face the first time I saw him.
Patchy beard.
Double chin.
Scraggly hair that probably was never washed.
He told us to get down on the ground and put our hands behind our backs. I was so scared that I almost threw up on the new rug. I swallowed it down because I knew Dad would make me clean it up when he was gone. My mom was lying on the floor right next to me. She was so quiet I couldn’t even hear her breathe. I closed my eyes and pretended that the soft rug pressed against my face was the one in my grandparent's house, far away from there.
“Don’t move a single inch or you will regret it for the rest of your life!” the man shouted almost nervously. He had a small black handgun that he carried by his side.
My Dad calmly directed the man down the hallway to our bedrooms, where all our valuables were stored. They left us for about ten minutes before the man returned with an armful of stuff. I did not dare to move from my position but I caught a glimpse of his face. All I saw was hatred painted on his eyes, lips, and nose. I became furious when I realized what he had stolen from me.
Luxury watch.
5,000 dollars cash.
My Xbox.
The man slammed the front door behind him and I immediately started crying. My mother wrapped her arms around my sobbing face and assured me that everything will be okay. She promised that Santa would buy me a new Xbox for Christmas. My Dad stood silently in front of us, anxiously running his hand through his receding hair. I turned to my Dad looking for something in his face; some sense of empathy or fear but there was nothing. His face was empty.
These days my father’s face is dead. It’s been 30 years since that man came to our house. The strong, successful man that my father once was is now a lost memory. The doctor said yesterday that his Alzheimer's is reaching its final stage. The only thing left on my Dad’s face is the drool my mother has to wipe off every 15 minutes. I remember my own friends would not want to come over because they were afraid of my dad. As the manager of a large agricultural manufacturing company, my Dad oversaw more than 200 employees. I can hardly imagine what those poor souls had to go through. Sometimes I felt like I was one of his employees too. Always trying to impress him, to be like him, but never feeling like I could. That night I truly couldn't believe that my Dad allowed a fat burglar to push my mother and I to the ground and take my Xbox.
Any day I could wake up and Dad might be gone. Honestly, I don’t really care. This family died a long time ago when that man first broke into our house. There are some things that I refuse to forget.
Can’t brush his own teeth.
Can’t wipe his own ass.
Can’t apologize for what he did to me.
The second time I saw his face I almost shit myself.
I was helping my mom clean up the aftermath of my ninth birthday party in the kitchen when I heard a knock. My mom looked a little uneasy, as she left the scattered wrapping paper on the table and walked towards the door. I peered over into the hallway, curious about who would be at our house this late at night. My grandfather, whom I was deeply close to, had recently passed away and Grandma would frequently visit the house if she needed help changing her oil or fixing the TV. I assumed it was her, so you can imagine my surprise when my mom opened the door to him.
I was absolutely petrified. The man stared me down and the room fell silent. I soon remembered everything I hated about his face. Why couldn't he shave his disgusting neckbeard or take care of his poorly aging skin? My mom left the room to get my father, and I sat silently looking down at the table, afraid to maintain eye contact with him. I could hear his footsteps approaching me when my parents emerged into the kitchen.
“Sir, we keep all the money in the safe next to our bedroom. There is nothing you would want here,” my dad pleaded.
“No,” the man replied, putting his handgun back in his belt.
He lightly grabbed my arm and told me to stand up. He looked at the wrapping paper scattered across the kitchen floor.
He stared at me again. He saw the fear frozen on my face.
“Is it your birthday today boy?”
"Yes, it is,” I replied. My face scrunched up and tears started rolling down my cheek. I don’t think I ever cried that hard in my life. It almost felt good, like I had nothing to hide from anymore. The tears felt like a bloody nose that not even a hundred tissues could clean up. My dad used to make me feel so embarrassed every time I cried but that night he looked ashamed.
At the time, I cared about two things in life: baseball and video games. The man took everything I got from my birthday party. The same routine. All of us down on the ground; this time our faces on the hardwood floor. My mom breathed loudly this time, hiding her own muffled tears.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.
A pack of baseball cards containing the 2009 World Series championship team.
Halo:Reach
Fuck, that one hurt the most. I was really looking forward to playing that game. I heard footsteps leaving the kitchen, and the deafening sound of the front door being slammed. I slowly stood up and saw the imprint of my tears on the hardwood floor. A pathetic little puddle.
My dad gave me the same schtick he gave last time. Blah blah blah we will call the police, blah blah blah we will get you more baseball cards, blah blah blah don’t go around school telling people about this. I nodded in agreement until all of his words became a hum of nothingness. At least there was something on his face this time. Shame. A lot of it.
After that night, I only cared about one thing in life and it wasn’t baseball or video games. The only thing that brought me joy was thinking about everything I would do to his face the next time I saw him, if only I was strong enough. I became obsessed.
Before bed
Bored in class
In the shower
I thought about what his face would look like if I had my aluminum baseball bat with me that night. Or if I had a bucket of boiling water that I could throw at him. The hatred that grew inside me for this man’s face grew alongside my fear. I remember one night I was thinking about his face too much and I peed in my water glass because I was too afraid to go to the bathroom. I felt like the second I left my bed, a thousand of his faces would hover into my room and swallow me like a piece of candy. So every night I would dream about killing his face and his face killing me.
For the next four years, the man would show up periodically to our house. Always the same procedure. Face on the ground and saying goodbye to at least one of my possessions. My father always complaining afterwards about how the police are incompetent at their jobs. He told me that he and mom were building a case against the man, so I needed to stay quiet for him to be prosecuted.
Great, so I need to get robbed 50 times before I can feel safe peeing again.
Since I began expecting his arrival, I started hiding my most valuable belongings under the clothes in my dresser. My grandfather had given me his lucky coin before he died and I kept it buried under a mountain of socks. When I felt scared, I would hold onto the coin. Sometimes I would even sleep with it. I never dared to bring the coin with me anywhere because I was terrified of losing it. Every time the man left our house, I would rush into my room to check on the coin and make sure it was still there.
During this time, things at home started to get worse. I was practically never happy and lived in a constant state of paranoia. I would hear my parents screaming at each other through the thin wall that separated our bedrooms. Life became a waiting game for when the man would come next.
I lost everything I cared about.
I lost feeling normal.
I lost my sense of self.
The last time I saw his face everything changed.
I thought it would just be like every other time. The same scraggly hair, patchy beard, and double chin. He would exchange a few words with my father and leave shortly after with thousands of dollars worth of valuables. My family was rich; I do admit that. But I was starting to feel like throwing all this money down the drain was not the best strategy for preserving our generational wealth. I learned not to gain attachments to anything. Frustration and confusion had been building inside of me as I grew older. I knew something was not right.
That night the man did not press our faces against the floor. By then, I was 13 years old and had started taking up jiu jitsu after school. I was tired of feeling weak so I thought I should do something about it.
Instead of going to my parent’s bedroom where all the money was kept, the man entered my room. This was not completely unusual as he would sometimes rummage through my stuff looking for anything important. I would always leave a decoy item out in the open to ensure that he never saw the secret buried under my socks. It was interesting seeing him go through my stuff. I was surprised he had become so comfortable in our house that he did not feel a need to force us to the ground anymore. I saw his face looking intently at every corner of my room, searching for another chance to ruin my day. God how I hated his face.
My heart sank when he opened the sock drawer in my dresser. I prayed that he would not find it but sure enough the man was holding my grandfather’s lucky coin to the light. In that moment, I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of fury. I wanted to burn his fucking face to ash. All of those years of loss and fear had amounted to this. My parents stood next to me, nervously watching the scene unfold. I saw fear in their faces. But they were not afraid of the man. They were afraid of me.
When the man left our house that night, I made the split second decision to chase after him. My father tried to restrain me so I punched him square in the jaw. My mother cried out my name as I darted out the door and sprinted towards the disappearing figure in the darkness. The man was walking towards his car so I snuck around the back to block him from driving away.
He saw me.
He heard me.
He knew me.
I was expecting the man to grab my arm like he did on my ninth birthday. I thought he would point his gun at me and press my face against the concrete road.
But he ran. The man made a sharp right turn into a large grassy field a few blocks from my home. He was not very fast and over the years, I had gotten stronger. I felt the warm summer breeze blow against my face. The nights were so pretty there; the stars and moon looked like holes poked in the sky. Too bad I was always too afraid to leave my bed. That night, running through the grass, I felt alive for the first time. Everything was silent except for the sound of cicadas, footsteps, and heavy breathing. I was catching up on him. That night I wanted to fuck up his face so bad that he would need facial reconstruction surgery.
With a loud thud, the man collapsed to the ground about thirty feet in front of me. It was clear that he was not much of a long distance runner. I slowed down and began walking towards him.
My heart beating out of my chest.
My lungs gasping for air.
My face painted with fantasies of revenge.
I approached the man who was lying down on the grass trying to catch his breath. He attempted to reach for his handgun but I quickly pinned his arm down. I reached into his belt and pulled out the gun. Examining it closely, I realized that it wasn’t even real. I had seen this type of gun before at my friend’s place. It was a fucking BB gun.
I started to laugh.
“So this entire time, you were robbing my house with a BB gun?”
The man remained silent.
“Answer my questions or I swear to God, I will make sure you regret it for the rest of your life,” I stated plainly.
Maybe it was the moon. Maybe it was my face. But the man started crying. An explosion of tears that beat whatever I displayed on my ninth birthday. Here was the man that I had feared my entire life, crying like a newborn baby.
“I think we must end our time together dear boy,” the man said. “There is something you need to know.”
I listened intently waiting for an answer. It seemed difficult for him to speak through all his tears. At this point, I was more concerned about finding my grandfather’s coin than whatever bullshit he was about to spew. But my priorities soon changed.
“I am not a thief. At least, not usually.”
He paused. The crying was beginning to stop.
“I actually worked for your father in the factory for many years. I don’t know what you think about him, boy, but he is a bad man. Even worse than me.”
“I find it hard to believe that there is anyone on this Earth worse than you,” I said.
Even at this age, I didn’t really care what he had to say about my Dad. I didn’t like him much either. But my hatred for his face had grown so strong, even through his tears, there was nothing I hated more.
“Your father abused his employees,” the man continued. “He had no empathy for us or our families. One day your father and I got into an argument about taking time off for holiday. I hadn’t seen my kids for Christmas for the past five years. Things escalated and he hit me.”
His face was lit up by the stars. I sat next to him, releasing his arm from my grip. The grass was damp and vast. The two of us sat together in the darkness, wondering how life brought us here. I knew my father got angry but I never knew it was this bad.
“I had evidence to prove what he had done to me and put him away for a long time. He apologized over and over again but it meant nothing. I wanted him to fully understand the consequences of his actions.”
Blackened eye.
Dislocated shoulder.
Broken wrist.
“But I didn’t want to waste years of my life in court. So we made a deal. He gave me a large sum of money in small increments if I promised to never say anything. I think your dad knew that he had everything to lose. I agreed but under one condition.”
I think I had an idea on what this condition may be. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out the coin. I snatched it from his hand before he had the opportunity to give it to me.
“I knew how much this meant to you. Your father told me about it. That is why I took it,” the man said.
“I rarely got to see my children when I worked for your father. I wanted him to know how this felt. At first, I only planned on visiting your house once. But I became addicted to that look on your face. That sense of fear. I felt powerful for the first time in my life.”
It felt like every emotion I ever felt was buzzing in my ears. In the man’s still teary eyes, I saw the vague reflection of my face and was deeply saddened by what it had become.
“I am sorry, boy. I never wanted it to come to this. Now both of us have nothing. And it’s all my fault,” the man said.
His torrent of crying returned. I put my arm around his shoulder and comforted him. I really didn’t know what to say. Thinking back, I wish I had said something. I wish I told him that I didn’t hate his face anymore. I stood up and left him there. None of this mattered. I followed the moon home under the leaves, blowing in the beautiful summer wind.
#entertainment
source
I hated his face the first time I saw him.
Patchy beard.
Double chin.
Scraggly hair that probably was never washed.
He told us to get down on the ground and put our hands behind our backs. I was so scared that I almost threw up on the new rug. I swallowed it down because I knew Dad would make me clean it up when he was gone. My mom was lying on the floor right next to me. She was so quiet I couldn’t even hear her breathe. I closed my eyes and pretended that the soft rug pressed against my face was the one in my grandparent's house, far away from there.
“Don’t move a single inch or you will regret it for the rest of your life!” the man shouted almost nervously. He had a small black handgun that he carried by his side.
My Dad calmly directed the man down the hallway to our bedrooms, where all our valuables were stored. They left us for about ten minutes before the man returned with an armful of stuff. I did not dare to move from my position but I caught a glimpse of his face. All I saw was hatred painted on his eyes, lips, and nose. I became furious when I realized what he had stolen from me.
Luxury watch.
5,000 dollars cash.
My Xbox.
The man slammed the front door behind him and I immediately started crying. My mother wrapped her arms around my sobbing face and assured me that everything will be okay. She promised that Santa would buy me a new Xbox for Christmas. My Dad stood silently in front of us, anxiously running his hand through his receding hair. I turned to my Dad looking for something in his face; some sense of empathy or fear but there was nothing. His face was empty.
These days my father’s face is dead. It’s been 30 years since that man came to our house. The strong, successful man that my father once was is now a lost memory. The doctor said yesterday that his Alzheimer's is reaching its final stage. The only thing left on my Dad’s face is the drool my mother has to wipe off every 15 minutes. I remember my own friends would not want to come over because they were afraid of my dad. As the manager of a large agricultural manufacturing company, my Dad oversaw more than 200 employees. I can hardly imagine what those poor souls had to go through. Sometimes I felt like I was one of his employees too. Always trying to impress him, to be like him, but never feeling like I could. That night I truly couldn't believe that my Dad allowed a fat burglar to push my mother and I to the ground and take my Xbox.
Any day I could wake up and Dad might be gone. Honestly, I don’t really care. This family died a long time ago when that man first broke into our house. There are some things that I refuse to forget.
Can’t brush his own teeth.
Can’t wipe his own ass.
Can’t apologize for what he did to me.
The second time I saw his face I almost shit myself.
I was helping my mom clean up the aftermath of my ninth birthday party in the kitchen when I heard a knock. My mom looked a little uneasy, as she left the scattered wrapping paper on the table and walked towards the door. I peered over into the hallway, curious about who would be at our house this late at night. My grandfather, whom I was deeply close to, had recently passed away and Grandma would frequently visit the house if she needed help changing her oil or fixing the TV. I assumed it was her, so you can imagine my surprise when my mom opened the door to him.
I was absolutely petrified. The man stared me down and the room fell silent. I soon remembered everything I hated about his face. Why couldn't he shave his disgusting neckbeard or take care of his poorly aging skin? My mom left the room to get my father, and I sat silently looking down at the table, afraid to maintain eye contact with him. I could hear his footsteps approaching me when my parents emerged into the kitchen.
“Sir, we keep all the money in the safe next to our bedroom. There is nothing you would want here,” my dad pleaded.
“No,” the man replied, putting his handgun back in his belt.
He lightly grabbed my arm and told me to stand up. He looked at the wrapping paper scattered across the kitchen floor.
He stared at me again. He saw the fear frozen on my face.
“Is it your birthday today boy?”
"Yes, it is,” I replied. My face scrunched up and tears started rolling down my cheek. I don’t think I ever cried that hard in my life. It almost felt good, like I had nothing to hide from anymore. The tears felt like a bloody nose that not even a hundred tissues could clean up. My dad used to make me feel so embarrassed every time I cried but that night he looked ashamed.
At the time, I cared about two things in life: baseball and video games. The man took everything I got from my birthday party. The same routine. All of us down on the ground; this time our faces on the hardwood floor. My mom breathed loudly this time, hiding her own muffled tears.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.
A pack of baseball cards containing the 2009 World Series championship team.
Halo:Reach
Fuck, that one hurt the most. I was really looking forward to playing that game. I heard footsteps leaving the kitchen, and the deafening sound of the front door being slammed. I slowly stood up and saw the imprint of my tears on the hardwood floor. A pathetic little puddle.
My dad gave me the same schtick he gave last time. Blah blah blah we will call the police, blah blah blah we will get you more baseball cards, blah blah blah don’t go around school telling people about this. I nodded in agreement until all of his words became a hum of nothingness. At least there was something on his face this time. Shame. A lot of it.
After that night, I only cared about one thing in life and it wasn’t baseball or video games. The only thing that brought me joy was thinking about everything I would do to his face the next time I saw him, if only I was strong enough. I became obsessed.
Before bed
Bored in class
In the shower
I thought about what his face would look like if I had my aluminum baseball bat with me that night. Or if I had a bucket of boiling water that I could throw at him. The hatred that grew inside me for this man’s face grew alongside my fear. I remember one night I was thinking about his face too much and I peed in my water glass because I was too afraid to go to the bathroom. I felt like the second I left my bed, a thousand of his faces would hover into my room and swallow me like a piece of candy. So every night I would dream about killing his face and his face killing me.
For the next four years, the man would show up periodically to our house. Always the same procedure. Face on the ground and saying goodbye to at least one of my possessions. My father always complaining afterwards about how the police are incompetent at their jobs. He told me that he and mom were building a case against the man, so I needed to stay quiet for him to be prosecuted.
Great, so I need to get robbed 50 times before I can feel safe peeing again.
Since I began expecting his arrival, I started hiding my most valuable belongings under the clothes in my dresser. My grandfather had given me his lucky coin before he died and I kept it buried under a mountain of socks. When I felt scared, I would hold onto the coin. Sometimes I would even sleep with it. I never dared to bring the coin with me anywhere because I was terrified of losing it. Every time the man left our house, I would rush into my room to check on the coin and make sure it was still there.
During this time, things at home started to get worse. I was practically never happy and lived in a constant state of paranoia. I would hear my parents screaming at each other through the thin wall that separated our bedrooms. Life became a waiting game for when the man would come next.
I lost everything I cared about.
I lost feeling normal.
I lost my sense of self.
The last time I saw his face everything changed.
I thought it would just be like every other time. The same scraggly hair, patchy beard, and double chin. He would exchange a few words with my father and leave shortly after with thousands of dollars worth of valuables. My family was rich; I do admit that. But I was starting to feel like throwing all this money down the drain was not the best strategy for preserving our generational wealth. I learned not to gain attachments to anything. Frustration and confusion had been building inside of me as I grew older. I knew something was not right.
That night the man did not press our faces against the floor. By then, I was 13 years old and had started taking up jiu jitsu after school. I was tired of feeling weak so I thought I should do something about it.
Instead of going to my parent’s bedroom where all the money was kept, the man entered my room. This was not completely unusual as he would sometimes rummage through my stuff looking for anything important. I would always leave a decoy item out in the open to ensure that he never saw the secret buried under my socks. It was interesting seeing him go through my stuff. I was surprised he had become so comfortable in our house that he did not feel a need to force us to the ground anymore. I saw his face looking intently at every corner of my room, searching for another chance to ruin my day. God how I hated his face.
My heart sank when he opened the sock drawer in my dresser. I prayed that he would not find it but sure enough the man was holding my grandfather’s lucky coin to the light. In that moment, I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of fury. I wanted to burn his fucking face to ash. All of those years of loss and fear had amounted to this. My parents stood next to me, nervously watching the scene unfold. I saw fear in their faces. But they were not afraid of the man. They were afraid of me.
When the man left our house that night, I made the split second decision to chase after him. My father tried to restrain me so I punched him square in the jaw. My mother cried out my name as I darted out the door and sprinted towards the disappearing figure in the darkness. The man was walking towards his car so I snuck around the back to block him from driving away.
He saw me.
He heard me.
He knew me.
I was expecting the man to grab my arm like he did on my ninth birthday. I thought he would point his gun at me and press my face against the concrete road.
But he ran. The man made a sharp right turn into a large grassy field a few blocks from my home. He was not very fast and over the years, I had gotten stronger. I felt the warm summer breeze blow against my face. The nights were so pretty there; the stars and moon looked like holes poked in the sky. Too bad I was always too afraid to leave my bed. That night, running through the grass, I felt alive for the first time. Everything was silent except for the sound of cicadas, footsteps, and heavy breathing. I was catching up on him. That night I wanted to fuck up his face so bad that he would need facial reconstruction surgery.
With a loud thud, the man collapsed to the ground about thirty feet in front of me. It was clear that he was not much of a long distance runner. I slowed down and began walking towards him.
My heart beating out of my chest.
My lungs gasping for air.
My face painted with fantasies of revenge.
I approached the man who was lying down on the grass trying to catch his breath. He attempted to reach for his handgun but I quickly pinned his arm down. I reached into his belt and pulled out the gun. Examining it closely, I realized that it wasn’t even real. I had seen this type of gun before at my friend’s place. It was a fucking BB gun.
I started to laugh.
“So this entire time, you were robbing my house with a BB gun?”
The man remained silent.
“Answer my questions or I swear to God, I will make sure you regret it for the rest of your life,” I stated plainly.
Maybe it was the moon. Maybe it was my face. But the man started crying. An explosion of tears that beat whatever I displayed on my ninth birthday. Here was the man that I had feared my entire life, crying like a newborn baby.
“I think we must end our time together dear boy,” the man said. “There is something you need to know.”
I listened intently waiting for an answer. It seemed difficult for him to speak through all his tears. At this point, I was more concerned about finding my grandfather’s coin than whatever bullshit he was about to spew. But my priorities soon changed.
“I am not a thief. At least, not usually.”
He paused. The crying was beginning to stop.
“I actually worked for your father in the factory for many years. I don’t know what you think about him, boy, but he is a bad man. Even worse than me.”
“I find it hard to believe that there is anyone on this Earth worse than you,” I said.
Even at this age, I didn’t really care what he had to say about my Dad. I didn’t like him much either. But my hatred for his face had grown so strong, even through his tears, there was nothing I hated more.
“Your father abused his employees,” the man continued. “He had no empathy for us or our families. One day your father and I got into an argument about taking time off for holiday. I hadn’t seen my kids for Christmas for the past five years. Things escalated and he hit me.”
His face was lit up by the stars. I sat next to him, releasing his arm from my grip. The grass was damp and vast. The two of us sat together in the darkness, wondering how life brought us here. I knew my father got angry but I never knew it was this bad.
“I had evidence to prove what he had done to me and put him away for a long time. He apologized over and over again but it meant nothing. I wanted him to fully understand the consequences of his actions.”
Blackened eye.
Dislocated shoulder.
Broken wrist.
“But I didn’t want to waste years of my life in court. So we made a deal. He gave me a large sum of money in small increments if I promised to never say anything. I think your dad knew that he had everything to lose. I agreed but under one condition.”
I think I had an idea on what this condition may be. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out the coin. I snatched it from his hand before he had the opportunity to give it to me.
“I knew how much this meant to you. Your father told me about it. That is why I took it,” the man said.
“I rarely got to see my children when I worked for your father. I wanted him to know how this felt. At first, I only planned on visiting your house once. But I became addicted to that look on your face. That sense of fear. I felt powerful for the first time in my life.”
It felt like every emotion I ever felt was buzzing in my ears. In the man’s still teary eyes, I saw the vague reflection of my face and was deeply saddened by what it had become.
“I am sorry, boy. I never wanted it to come to this. Now both of us have nothing. And it’s all my fault,” the man said.
His torrent of crying returned. I put my arm around his shoulder and comforted him. I really didn’t know what to say. Thinking back, I wish I had said something. I wish I told him that I didn’t hate his face anymore. I stood up and left him there. None of this mattered. I followed the moon home under the leaves, blowing in the beautiful summer wind.
#entertainment
source
| 3,000 mlx | |
| 4 | |
| 0 |