When he Left

That day had been a beautiful rainy day till his father dropped dead in front of him. 

It used to be that his mother was away on her studies, and Lute was fine with that even if he missed her. Most of his time, he spent it at his family home near the big town, staying his father, and his father played with him every day, showed him so many things, and let him know that he was loved. It was ideal, his garden of Eden, and it would have never occurred to him that it would stop. 

But it did. 

He only had a vague recollections of what actually happened… he had beer so small at the time. So young. All he knew was that he had stepped away from his father for a moment, probably to play a little bit alone, and when he had come back, looking for him, he had found his father on the ground. Unmoving. Unresponsive no matter how many times he had nudged him. 

At first, Lute had thought that his father was sleeping. And when he had persisted to not answer, he had believed it to be a joke. A joke that took longer and longer, a joke that went on too long. Lute remembered kicking him. Oh, how he regretted that kick. 

Why hadn’t he ran outside to warn someone, back then? They had neighbours, some of which he had probably been able to see just by looking out the window. Would that have saved his father? 

Probably not. 

And yet, he must have been old enough to understand what death was, it was one of the earliest concept that had been introduced to him. Of course he knew what it was, but in his mind, it didn’t happen… like that. He didn’t turn the corner and encounter death, spread across the hallway of his home, wearing the shape of his father. No, instead, in his mind, it was all a joke. Even the breathing… he knew that his father could hold his breath for far longer than he, as a kid, could, and so he assumed it was that. He truly had no idea about anything, hadn’t he?

He remembered his father starting to stink, especially towards the evening. He had wandered off again, to play with some more toys and steal a snack from the kitchen. He knew he wasn’t allowed to, but he was starting to be mad that his father was not responding to anything he did or said. He acted out, maybe in the hopes that he would finally get a response… and nothing happened. The stolen snack didn’t even taste of victory or mischief as it usually did. 

His mother came back earlier than usual. He came running to her and, sickening detail that he recalled, he jumped over his father to get to the front door. She was very tired, so she didn’t laugh when she saw her son running towards him and her husband on the ground behind said child, pale and unmoving, his limbs now stiff… 

She asked what that was about. Lute said that his dad was pea king them. She asked for how long he had been doing this, almost as an afterthought, off-handedly, and she paled when she blanched her son’s response… blanched felt like such a weak word for what happened to her face. Her eyes widened and her cheeks got sucked in, her lips thinned, and for a second it was like the image of a skull passed over her, as if she too had been touched by the spectral finger of death. 

What followed was a series of horrifying questions as she slowly uncovered the truth: that her husband was not responding, that he was unmoving, that he was cold. But what Lute mostly remembered was the gruelling, rising sense of guilt in his stomach, the pressing urgency that he should have done something… that he had been there since the start. Something! Anything would have been better! Over not knowing, over thinking it was a joke. 

He remembered screaming and crying as they took his father away. Screaming that he was sorry, sorry… as if that changed anything. 

Lute remained haunted. He wondered if his father had still been alive when he had first found him. That if he had called someone for help, that they could have called for a doctor. 

But he had done nothing.