The only thing I remember about my father is his absence, those long moments of emptiness in my life, the smell of smoke and the stench of wine, I remember the caresses never given, the kisses I dreamed of, the hugs I never had, all but I learned the curses and curses from him, and it’s the only thing he taught me, for the rest nothing, I don’t even remember his name anymore, thinking of him, I imagine only a menacing shadow that he appears at night to check if I’m in bed, and no, no blows, he didn’t even bother with those, the total absence of any form of communication, of presence, of everything, because a woman like my mother would never fall in love with him ?
Because what Mom felt for him really must have been love, there’s no other explanation, just as I can’t explain why other women too had had intercourse with him until they took away that shadow on the wall, the only thing that had the semblance of a father. Not even the stench of his cigarette butts remained, everything vanished like a dream upon awakening, and my mother’s? What to say about her, a beacon that without light, a hiss in the night that said things, impalpable, ethereal, long chats without saying anything, talks about the weather and school, she had the resigned look of someone who knows that nothing will be able to do to change things, because if that was the case there had to be a reason, it’s not my fault or yours, she kept repeating as she cried, my mother was just a photograph in a frame to remember her youth, but at least she was there, if not other she was always there, until the end, she always had the impression of holding the reins of a family together, both when she breathed her last and the moment she let them go, everything vanished, the wild horses that don’t know bridles flee if they don’t feel the bits they hold, getting lost in the bush and never coming back. Yes, I once had brothers and some semblance of a family, a long time ago.
Often as it happens now, these thoughts come to mind, how would it have been if, but then looking up, I fall back into a reality that I don’t even want to see sitting beyond a glass, I would like to become estranged, disappear, sometimes I wish I was dead , erased from memory and time, but this is not possible, not now that I have a more pressing problem, to survive.
It pours, I watch the raindrops stick like flies on the glass, outside there is life, if you can call this “life”, all that alternation of doing things, running to grab a dry place somewhere, making her way through that human tide that doesn’t want to drown and that would kill for a breath of air, in all of this I’m just a spectator, or if you want a wild dog ready to pounce on something that will make her get to the next day.
Diary of a rebel 