The Family Business

This is it: I just have to be confident and tell them my opinion. It’s my own right to choose the path I wish to take. It’s my own life and they can’t make me follow their own desires. Thought Billy as he stood nervously in front of the door to his home. He could already hear his parents talking inside. He tried to control his shaking, and with sweaty hands pressed down the door handle.

‘Hi dearie!’ Greeted him his mother who was fussing about in the kitchen. ‘How was school?’

‘Uh, it was okay I guess.’ Billy stepped into the living room, where his father was sitting in front of the TV with eyes glued to the screen.

For a moment, he looked up and their eyes met. ‘Hi son! You’ve been away for quite some time…’ It was 17 o’clock. Not the regular time a 12-year old boy finishes school.

‘Uh, there was this program at school. We got to meet people from different professions to help us choose ours. They talked about what they do and how they feel about it and stuff like that.’

‘Haha, it’s always nice, when they want to motivate children to take certain professions, but you needn’t worry about that. You will fit right into the business of your old man.’

‘Yeah, right…’ This is it. This is the moment, when I have to stand up for myself and not let them decide the future for me. Billy squeezed his hands into fists and took on the most serious face he could. ‘About that. I don’t want to continue the family business.’

‘Well then, what would you do if not that?’ His father remarked ironically with a smirk on his face.

Billy gathered all his will power and said in a loud voice. ‘I want to be a doctor.’

His mother came out of the kitchen with a dazed expression on her face: ‘What?’ She asked in a frightened manner.

His father stood up from the television, and with still a smirk on his face, which was by then mixed with the starting fury, he said: ‘Okay son. A joke is supposed to make people laugh, but yours was not particularly funny…’

‘It’s not a joke. I want to be a doctor, when I grow up. I want to save people.’ The last line was the hardest to say, but Billy still stood there with trembling legs awaiting his parents’ reaction.

‘Oh God.’ His mother’s face grew paler. ‘What are they teaching in the schools these days?’

‘Save lives.’ His father’s head was getting redder and his voice louder. ‘How dare you say something like that? Our family business is the total opposite of saving lives. Death gives us all the business we need and not saving lives. We are reapers for god’s sake. The harbingers of death. And you want to throw away your family heritage just to save lives.’

‘But I don’t want to be a reaper. I don’t want to kill people.’

‘How can you say that?’ By then his head was as read as beetroot. ‘Those people are meant to die anyway. We’re just… well, helping them.’

‘But I don’t want that anymore.’

‘It’s that stupid school.’ Blamed her mother hysterically. ‘All they teach there is how great it is to become a lawyer, a doctor, a businessman, but the traditional professions are not even mentioned.’

‘I just want to do something different in the future. Not cutting other people’s souls out.’

‘How can you say that?’ After the thundering, angry voice his father merely whispered by then. ‘Generations after generations have been reapers in this family. If they could hear you now they would turn in their grave.’

‘I don’t care.’

His mother cried out. ‘Oh John. What are we going to do?’

‘Are you happy now? You made your mother cry. Go up to your room. And don’t you even let me see you tonight. You’re grounded.’

Billy rolled his eyes and with loud steps ran up to his room. Only after he closed the door behind him, did he let out a sigh in relief. It could have gone worse. He knew he needed a better way to convince his parents, but how?

During the evening, Billy spent most of his time planning and reminiscing how his parents reacted to his decision. A tear fell from his eye as he saw his mother crying and his father’s lush of anger. Why can’t they support me in my decision? A knock on the door woke him from his contemplation. His father knocked again and asked: ‘have you come to your senses yet?’

With a loud, clear voice he answered back. ‘You cannot change my mind.’

‘I am your father and you will do as I say. You just need a little more time to realize it.’

Billy tried to appear strong, but as soon as he heard the fading of his father’s footsteps, he burst into a soft sob.

He could only leave the room to go to the toilet. Even the dinner was bought to his door. He was not welcomed at the dinner table. He spent the evening alone cuddled in his bed, trapped in his forlorn.

The next day was Saturday, but as his decision didn’t change he was still grounded. At one point he heard his father leaving the house. He probably needed to take care of a sudden business-related matter. Someone must have died in the neighborhood…

After his father’s departure, he carefully ventured downstairs in hopes of finding apprehension from her mother at least.

‘Shouldn’t you be in your room?’ Her mother said as she spotted Billy, but with a cheeky smile on her face.

‘Mum, is it really that bad that I don’t want to continue the family business.’

‘Well. You see everyone in our family was a reaper. Even I did my part, before having you.’ She didn’t look straight into her son’s eyes and she began crunching her hands. ‘So you see, it is something of a family tradition to work for the glory of death. And business hasn’t been blooming lately due to the effectiveness of medications and the technological advancements in the medical fields. Fewer and fewer people die in the first world countries.’ She said sadly and paused for a moment. ‘That’s why we are highly against you becoming a doctor. If you considered another profession, like becoming a serial killer we may even support your decision, but a saver of lives, that just doesn’t work.’

‘But I do not want to kill people.’ Billy told her in a low voice.

‘With time, maybe you will understand that you should never act against your own family’s interest.’ She paused for a moment then continued in a resigned manner: ‘it’s your father you have to convince why you would choose such a path. Until then, he will not…  be the same.’

Billy understood. He had to persuade his father that becoming a doctor won’t ruin their family business or it might even help it. It was a hard task, but not impossible in the kid’s mind.

After his father returned, Billy returned to his room and spent the whole day trying to figure out a solution. The next day went by in the same manner. His father still kept him grounded, although Billy suspected that he was less angry and rather sadder because of what he said. In the loneliness of his room, he began thinking about life and death and what’s the connection between them: most people get sad, when their friend or family member dies, because that person was so close to them. Sometimes even strangers feel bad, when they hear that someone young died. Not because they would miss that person. They didn’t even know him/her, but because… because… because death takes away that person’s future. A future, where he or she could do anything or become anyone. He kept thinking how he could use this line of thinking in his defense then suddenly it him.

He jumped out of his bed and rushed out of his room to the living room. His parents were just watching a TV program there, when he entered the room. His father discerned immediately: ‘Shouldn’t you be in your room?’

‘Mum, dad I have the reason why becoming a doctor wouldn’t be that bad after all.’

They muted the TV and so with shining eyes the boy began his explanation: ‘So death takes away a person’s future, potential and opportunities in life.’

‘And brings us business.’ Interrupted his father.

‘Come on John. Let him finish.’ Said his mother softly.

‘So it takes away a future, where that person could become a lawyer, a successful businessman, a family man, so basically anything.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

‘What if that person, who would normally die without a doctor, would become a taker of lives in the future?’

‘You mean a killer?’ Asked his father confused, but the bulb in his head switched on with a flicker of light.

‘Anything.’ Finished his presentation Billy as he saw that his parents finally understood.

‘I see.’ Said his mom. ‘The person a doctor saves might actually turn out to be a serial killer, a dictator or a soldier in the future. Then that person would actually take more lives and would bring us more business.’

‘Our son could be the one, who saves the next Stalin or the next Charlie Manson. Business would be blooming.’ His father’s eyes scintillated with infatuation and joy. ‘Son, I doubted your idea, but how wrong I was.’

‘He will become the greatest doctor ever.’ Said her mother, who embraced her son warmly, feeling proud and excited.

His father also stepped closer to his son and looked straight into Billy’s eyes. ‘I’m really proud of you, son.’

‘Thank you, dad.’ Billy was full of joy. His plan worked. He had no desire to save people only that later they would become murderers, but that was what needed to convince his parents. Now, he was able to begin his path to become a saver of lives in the glory of humanity and could step out of the shadow of his family’s legacy of reapers and servants of death.