blank canvases

It all happened so fast for John randoven, he was never one to keep grudges for long albeit there were some boundries which would do you better not to cross.

Henry, his son, was a good child, always had been. He would bend to his fathers will easily and found delight in his approval, he was the type of child you would look at and smile while passing by in the streets or the one you would make an example of to your own children, but like every other child, he grew up.  

Now twenty-two and a grown man he had made the unfortunate mistake of crossing a line, the words he had muttered in the midst of anger had decided to become his very undoing.

It was just like any other day to say the least, very simple, plaintive and bland.  

The world was a canvas and Henry was a brush wielded by John, they worked together. Him the artist and Henry his creation.

Maybe it was that the brush had worn out over time or that the colours had began to dull, either way Henry had had enough.  

His father was a great man but he was too absorbed in perfecting him to notice he was losing his grip on the more important things, one of them being his happiness.  

Humans are like computers we need to be fed in order to produce any possible outcome, John fed on the dreams he visualized for his son.  

He wanted to be the weaver of Henry's story, the one accountable for his actions. He believed himself to be more knowledgeable, which by some extent, was the truth but it did not give way for him to own somebody else's life entirely, even if it was his own son.  

He was a side character in his Henry's story fighting for a place that wasn't meant for him, he had learned to evolve his life around his son and wanted the same in return but unlike his father henry had decided to separate ways, he had wanted to live the way he wanted, with no boundaries.  

To him it was freedom. 

To his father, it was intolerable.

With each passing the day, the time grew nearer and nearer until one morning John woke up to complete silence.

 The house felt still much like the rest of the world and the wind howled and ravaged awaiting a storm that had yet to pass.

The windows of his home felt like barriers trapping him in as he went ahead and jerked them open, cold wet air blew around his wrinkled face as he drew in a deep breath, it felt strangled.

He rubbed a hand gently over his saggy skin pressing over his eyes in an attempt to open them up.

The blinding rays of the morning sun drew him in as he basked in their warmth, it felt wrong.

The blue of the sky matched that of the clouds painted all over his kitchen walls, a feat executed by a ten year old henry in all his glory.

They were sloppy, the brush strokes being hardly even yet it held such rugged and peculiarly grand artistry that John could never bring himself to wash it away.  

The sound of a bag being zipped broke him from his trance as he walked away from the window and towards the origin of the sound, his feet led him up the stairs and right to Henry's room where he was now facing the burnished brown door.  

John hit his knuckles on the door thrice, he wasn't used to such formalities but seeing his son's dislike at him barging in without warning before had persuaded him to change his ways, atleast some of them.

The door handle turned as Henry motioned his father to enter, walking inside he found himself surrounded with numerous cartons and bags filled to their brim. Clothes were shrewn everywhere resting on top of the drawers and piled all over the couch, some were even thrown across the floor he realized as one of Henry's shirts touched his feet.  

John leaned forward and opened one of the black bags, the force of the movement cramping his hand in the slightest. He gazed inside and found a bunch of shampoo containers along with other grocery items.  

He was packing. He was leaving.

John looked around him, around all the baggage and boxes only that they weren't just boxes, they were memories. Like the lamp on his bedside, the one they had bought together for his room because he had an endless and completely irrational fear of the dark.

of course he hadn't told him that.

He had cradled him in his arms that night and read him Peter pan, they had talked for hours about dinosaurs and dinners they had yet to eat. 

"What's all this?" he turned around to face his son who looked as if he was clenching his jaw.  

"I'm going to Algeria, my flight is tonight father. I told you before, there's this amazing job opportunity you have to understand", Henry announced all the while stuffing more clothes into one of the less visible bags.

John was confused at this declaration, how could his son who he had loved all his life, his son who had been there for as long as he could remember simply leave like that? No, it was not acceptable. John and Henry were like two passengers on the same boat, he had been so sure of their time together that he hadn't realized that it was slowly coming towards its end.

They were passengers on the same boat but their destinations were different.

He couldn't let him go, he needed him too much for that to happen. He was his work, his achievement.  

the only good thing about his life.  

Didn't he know how much his father required his constant presence? 

"Henry we've talked about this, I will not allow you to make this decision".  

Henry laughed at his fathers statement, twenty two and he still required his permission to make such an important decision of his life. It was pathetic.

"You mean to say that I can't move into my own home? that I am reserved to you and you only? father, i respect you more than I respect myself but truly you cannot expect me to walk in your shadow for the entirety of my life?" he questioned as he crept closer into the light.

John could see his son's face, translucent in the glow of the sun as he reached his hand up to hold his face,  

"you are still young and unsure, I only want what's best for you. We've both seen how incapable you are. When put to test you won't survive a day out there" he stated, his mouth a thin line of white, his eyes hard and cold.

"if I am incapable of anything today it is due to your selfishness", Henry seethed as he walked out of the room slamming the door shut behind him.

In that very moment, John felt as if he had finally lost everything. His heart was beating at a dangerous pace his hands shaking with each breath he took. He called after his son twice before he made his way out running.  

"Henry " he croaked his throat dry and constricted.  

His grey withering hands shivered as he waved at his son downstairs signaling him to stop.  

"Why don't you ever leave?". 

White that's all he saw, his canvas was white. All those years of colours and laughter all of it replaced by a bleak woeful white.  

It was harsh that's what it was, it was harsh and icy and it froze his very soul as his son yelled those five words.  

Five words that ripped him apart, that teared out his very insides clawing at him as if some demon had been unleashed upon his body.  

He felt himself losing control as warm tears flowed down his cheeks leaving a sticky trail behind.

John randoven rushed towards the staircase, his breathing was forced and his pulse was racing unnaturally.  

He could feel sweat dripping off his forehead as he pleaded for his son to listen to him, just once.

Engrossed in the fear of Henry walking out of the house he lost his balance and fell off the stairs landing on his back. A searing pain rippled throughout his body as he wailed in pure agony.

Slowly he felt his body plummeting into a state of tranquility and he closed his eyes for one last time as darkness enveloped him placing him in it's tender care.

Henry screamed as he saw his father slip, he scrambled in his direction and held his hands,  

"Father? please wake up, look I'm here it's okay, Henry's back he's not leaving I'm not leaving. Father? wake up please", he sobbed as he held John's head in his lap, dialing the emergency helpline. 

There was alot of blood. There was blood smeared on Henry's shirt and a dark thick pool on the floor near the last stair, there was blood everywhere. It smelled of sorrow and suffering. It smelled of regret and second chances which were never given.

John took his last breath in a hospital room surrounded by caring friends and his loving family.  

That would no-doubt be the ending preferred by you by me and by everyone else but it also no-doubt would've been one based upon lies and false fantasies that you find grandparents telling their children on rough stormy nights in hope to suppress their fear of the thunder and all things wicked underneath something more calm and serene.

In truth, John randoven did not die in a white hospital room with IV tubes all around him, rather, he passed away in the arms of his one and only son fighting a battle he had already lost.

I suppose John's death was inevitable, that it was already decided regardless of how unfavourable it's circumstances were. It was unfair of life for him to be snatched away like this but it is known to all that life works in ways un-known, it does not have mercy on the helpless, it does not care for the lonely. 

For John his whole world was his canvas, it was woven of beautiful memories and even beautifuller dreams. It was painted in pinks and yellows, a mesmerising collage of a man broken by life. 

A man who raised his son alone.  

It only took a second for the splashes of colour in his canvas to fade, for the love in it to be replaced by anger and then the anger by sorrow, it only took a second for the memories to be forgotten and for the promises to be broken, only took a second for it to return back to being blank.  

It cost Henry his beloved fathers death for him to realize that sometimes the side characters in our story are not that un-important after all, that sometimes they're the ones that make us who we are, the ones who shape us and mold us into our present selves.  

Take care of your side characters, don't lose them. Let them paint your canvases, let them write your stories because without them you're nothing, you're a shell of what you think you were and the remnants of what you hoped to be.