Same Old Same Old Wildflowers Dying

Our lives are like wildflowers. Here today gone tomorrow. Some people are the wildflowers, but some people are like the grasshoppers eating the wildflowers. Vicious, ravenous hungry creatures that only stop when there is nothing left.

The earth shattering sound of a gunshot went off behind me. I could practically feel the cold sharp pain of a bullet between my shoulder blades, or at least that is how I imagined it would feel, and my ears were ringing with alarms and red flags. My heart skipped more than a beat and for a moment death seemed like the only reality. Perhaps that was what you got when you tried to change someone. A stab, or rather a shot, in the back. Then I realized what he was trying to do. “Get back here. You know there is nowhere else you could possibly go. No one would take in someone like you. You are too much for anyone to handle. Give it two days and you’re only choice would be to come back” The voice was like a volcano spouting ash and molten rock and you were never quite sure when exactly it would suffocate you. “Please honey. Don’t do anything brash. I don’t want to hurt you, and you know that, but if you make me angry, I won’t be able to stop myself. And right now, you are making me very, very angry.” The voice changed to a soft melody. It sounded like a gentle breeze that was going to softly lull you to sleep with its movements. It sounded like a small child that needed me to come back. Like it needed me to take care of it. As slowly as the evening before Christmas I turned around to face my demon. It was in the shape of the man every girl wanted to be special to. The man who was supposed to be the strong one in times that everyone else needed a shoulder to cry on. The man who should protect you against the monsters of this world. Not the one who is the monster, the coward, the destroyer. This man I will no longer call my father.

 “Everyone’s already left! Mother first and, the rest followed. Like wildflowers, dying because they have been chewed through. Yet, I stayed and, hoped you would change, after witnessing all the destruction your words have caused. You know you have nothing left. You know this and now instead of committing to change yourself you are threatening me? The one who took care of you because no one else was willing!” His face was shifting like a computer program that was malfunctioning. It didn’t know which choice to make. Which expression would evoke the most sympathy? The most compassion. The most fear. He knew there was nothing he could do. Seeing the emotions on his face broke my heart. I wished. I wished very hard. I wished he would be a better man someday. That he would be able to love himself and then in turn, be able to love the rest of us as well.

My heart hurt. Tears struggled and fought to make their way to the outside. To scream with desperation at the world that I still loved my father. To show him that I really did care for him despite who he was. Despite what he was. Despite the sins he committed and the evils he’d done. Knowing that deep down someone in his family had put him through hell too. But at some point, in your life, you had to make a choice. Will you change for the better or for the worse? Will you be like those who raised you, hurt you and shamed you? Or will you learn from their mistakes?

The soft, but rather large grey cat in my arms was tense knowing the smell of sulfur boiling out of the mouth of hell from whence only demons came. It had been a gift from my mother just before she left. Its large green eyes focused on the devil who was looking at me with his once clear blue eyes showing signs of malware taking over his logical reasoning. “Yes, you are absolutely right. I need help! I need your help! You are the only one that could help me, because only you understand me. Only you know what it’s like to feel out of control. To not be able to control your words. I cannot do this alone. I beg you. With you gone I won’t have anything else left. Anything else to live for! There would be no reason for me to live anymore!”

No. Oh, no. No. I had said all that needed to be said. There was no room left for discussion. No room left for doubt and regret Only action. I will not be coaxed back into that haunted house by him. The house in which I had spent endless evenings listening to the sound of the silence my family had left for me as an inheritance. My mind came back to the present, focusing on the act being put on for me This was not vulnerability he was showing me. This was not his heart. This was not a cry for help. This was manipulation. This was selfishness. This was a bitter lie, laced with poison, that cut into my heart, who in turn was begging me to go back. To forgive. To help him. No! My mind knew better than to trust the poisonous lie. It had almost killed me once before and I knew that this time there would be no remedy.

It was time to cut the ties. For the benefit of myself, my sanity and my father. “I’m sorry father. I am so sorry. I love you but I cannot stay. I cannot spend an evening more with you, listening to the hate in your voice. You break people down and expect them to love and respect you because you’re doing them a favor. I am leaving and I’m not coming back. Perhaps one day I’ll see you again. But don’t ever come back an unchanged man and don’t”, I took a deep breath and looked at him with eyes that were as cold sharp daggers,” don’t…you…ever… dare…to shoot at me again.”

His eyes went wide. Something like a mental click. Old rusty circuits coming back to life. For the first time in all my life he kept silent. No desperate words., no fury filled outbursts and no calmly calculated threats. I turned around and heard my shoes clacking on the pavement. As I got into my small, silver car, I saw him slowly fall to his knees and tears were streaming from his eyes. There were no words to accompany those tears, nor were there any words left to accompany mine. Was he accepting this? Could there possibly be hope for him to change? My mind was calm and for what felt like the first time in forever I was at peace.

My cat was purring on the front seat knowing that from now on it didn’t have to live in fear anymore. Well then, I thought to myself, this is goodbye, because only time would tell if a devil could ever change. And as the time went by like a clock on steroids, the time did tell, but by then it was to late for us all. The grasshopper had shown its true colors and had devoured all the wildflowers. And then the wildflowers and the grasshoppers were both gone.