The Old Man and His Son

[MalReynolds]

Once upon a time there was an old man who lived in a house with his son. His son was no ordinary man – his son was a Big Important Business Man who went around doing very big important business things like undercutting the poor and serving the rich. The old man’s son also had a nasty habit of using women, the same way a man with a severe cold would use a Kleenex.

The old man lived with his son in a house that was sketched lazily on top of a hill that overlooked a small lake. The lake was a blight to the son, who wanted very much to drain the body of water, flatten the hill, destroy the house, and put up a parking garage. It was a very important business decision.

There was one caveat keeping the son from tearing down the house, razing the hill and draining the lake. His father, a long time sufferer of Alzheimer’s, had made it quite clear in his life that he did not wish to be removed from the house until his death.

Various years had gone by with his son biding his time for the old man to die, but the old man persisted. The old man, who could not remember what his wife looked like, or his son’s name, would not falter and would not fall. He would not die.

Surprisingly, the old man was still able to take care of most of the activities of daily living. He was able to clear his body of waste, clean his teeth, and bathe without the slightest hiccup. This concerned the son, because other very Big Important Businessmen like himself were waiting to develop the land, and the old man showed no signs of faltering.

He was so adroit that when it came time to take him to hospice, he flat out refused and proved more cognizant than anyone imagined. The son was red-faced and destroyed. How much longer could he wait? Vast untold riches were in wait just around the corner, with one very small road block.

So the son began to monitor his father and his activities of daily living, and the old man began to grow suspicious. So much so that he would cast backwards glances as he shuffled around the house, looking out for his son. Where there would normally be trust, there was none. The old man knew his son and knew how he had raised him.

The son was careful, very careful, as one must be in situations such as these. He watched his father move from day to day, and was well aware of his paranoid glances. He had to find the perfect opportunity to strike, to move in.

But his father grew more paranoid, and began locking himself in rooms. The son would follow and routinely try to talk to the man through the door, to convince him to see the world through his eyes. The father would have none of it.

It was during a shower one day that the old man thought perhaps he had gotten the best of his son. He reached for the soap, and began to rub it on his body. His mind was elsewhere, and he did not notice the pain at all until it was almost too late.

The son, in the dead of night, had stolen into the bathroom and slid razorblades into the bar of soap, just below the surface, so that they would cut into the paper like skin of his father with the slightest of pressure.

The warm water ran crimson, swirled the drain, and the old man stared in horror at the dozens of deep gashes running across his chest, his stomach, his nipples and throat. The blades protruded from the soap, dripping red sinewy muscle that plopped down into the running water as they were hit with the full force of the nozzle.

The old man’s eyes rolled back in his head as he let the agonizing pain sink in. The water running into his wounds, widening them, eating away at the musculature, burned him to the marrow. It was a searing agony that destroyed him down to the bone. His knees buckled under the insurmountable weight of the pain, the thin curls of soap dancing around the canyons of the gouges, cleaning the wound and stinging into infinity.

Speaking through a thin torrent of blood, he gurgled and staggered to the bathroom door. His son stood on the other side, smiling at the torn fat and muscle tissue. He embraced his father, keeping his clothes clean with a plastic bag that he wrapped the old man in.

Carefully, the son dragged him down the stairs by his feet, until he was at the back door. He moved the old man down the porch, leaving a thin trail of blood behind him, until he reached the garage door.

But when he went to open the garage door, the worst thing happened. The body slipped from his grip and began rolling down the hill towards the lake. Horrified, the son watched as the body hit the water and began to drift out, leaving a red maelstrom of swirls behind.

When the body was at the center of the lake, it sank, seemingly pulled down to the untold depths of the water.

The old man’s leg became wedged between rocks at the lake bottom, before becoming waterlogged, held firmly in place. Despite his best effort of dropping rocks, and small explosives, the son could not move the body. Nor could he dive without raising suspicion.

His Very Important Business had been ruined, because the lake could not be drained without the body being found, the hill could not be razed without the lake gone, and the houses destruction would serve no purpose without the land being uniform for the parking structure.

The Very Important Business people that the son had acquainted himself with took poorly to the news, and in a different lake, in a different district, in a different county, they sunk the body of the old man’s offspring.

Like father, like son.

-

Yes, it's short. Yes, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I know this. I wrote it in 10 minutes.

[Izzy-chandess]

I liked your story. It's not bad, and you avoided cliches. Congratulations! You get an Izzy star!

[ShastaTwist]

Oh.

My.

God.

[All_That_Chaz]

I love the tone of this piece. It's so wonderfully callous. Especially the ending. I laughed but it gave me chills at the same time. Loved it.

You use the word "destroy" and variations of it a lot. I didn't see a whole lot of meaning behind the repetition so I'd go with synonyms. The only real weakness in the story-telling was that I thought you could have given a few more lines to further draw out the horror and hopelessness of the son realizing that his father had still foiled his plans even in death.

[Tokzic]

Utterly stunned. I love fable-style writings that are tainted like this.

Only quip I have is when you say "Where there normally was trust, there was none." A metaphor would go great here, but as it stands, it's really plain and has no impact.

[MMShadow]

amazing, bravo my good sir, great imagery and great word choice, it was deliciously macabre and clever no Ree-ree-ree-ree psycho death shower that i was expecting, instead i got something nice and new. I laughed at the cleverness of the end "Like father like son" thing as well i got a kick out of that. as well as seeing the real justice of karama