(part 2)

So I got back home and sneaked back in. Felt so teenagery after a naughty nights out. my dad was listening to TV very loud in his room upstairs, (he was almost deaf from all his years working in a mine). actually, he was asleep by that point, but he hadn't turned off the TV.

As I was slowly and quietly shuffling in the kitchen before walking up the stairs, in my marijuana sensory haze, I started paying attention to the TV sounds that were filling the whole house.

I don't remember it well now, as I probably chose to forget this episode the next day as best as i could. What i can recollect now is that it was some very standard american TV show, like a true crime story. Or it might have been a talent show like The Voice (weekday edition), though there was none of that aural glitz you can recognize on these shows.

What I was hearing was a man telling a story to someone, but the interviewer's voice wouldn't be heard and there was no background music. Sometimes it would switch to someone else telling his side of the story, but it all seemed to be the same story. The voices were booming in the silent house as I was creaking up the stairs.

I don't remember anything vividly, but it went something like: "it's not working out..." "it's very sad..." "there's nothing much I can do for you anymore..." "sometimes we have to part ways". Or it might have been something completely different. This is my best recollection. I could only make up stuff by trying to describe this further now.

It sounds silly now. It's very easy to dismiss now, with a rational mind. But it was as if my dad was speaking to me via the TV program. And it went on for many minutes. I don't even remember what words escaped from that TV's speakers that night. But in truth, as I walking these stairs, petrified, I knew these harsh, sad words were meant for me. My dad couldn't speak to me as a human with his own words, but he could speak to me through this TV, in this darkened home, at this moment.

If I had to put it into words now, years removed from that night... this is when I realized that even at the cusp of his death, after a few weeks of me being at his side, no matter what my intentions were, no matter how much I would help him, no matter how many breakfasts we would spend together, we would never bond much closer. We were only two strangers, lost in the void of civilization, who happened to be father and son.

So anyways, I went and closed the TV in his dark room, went to the guestroom bed and listened to some Aphex Twin in the dark. I didn't sleep very well that night.