I look around the cold, drab room I find myself in. The gray room gave off an aura that repelled anyone to enter with a cheery disposition. As soon as someone steps through the front door, the mood dies, along with their desire to be happy. The walls were barren and lifeless. The couches are stained with food and other unidentifiable things. Life only came through the TV as an artificial substitute for what’s really missing. 

Two people were yelling in the room over, and I recognized those voices immediately. The show on TV was the show where the yellow mouse fought a giant red crab. The kid who owned the yellow mouse ordered him around with such proficiency that the fight ended before it even started. The mouse looked back and took the orders and fought with such power and skill that I couldn’t help but be amazed.

The yelling only grew louder, and the TV grew quieter. Their voices overshadowed every single noise in the world to the point where their screams vibrated my skull.

“Tell me, how are we going to pay them off?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“We already owe those people so much. What do you think will happen when-”

“Will you just shut the fuck up!”

All screaming ceased and the house finally returned back to normal. Or as normal as it could at least. Suddenly, I heard footsteps. I turned to see my mother retreat from the kitchen, frowning all the while. Tears reddened her eyes and stained her cheeks. When she saw me in the living room, she put on a smile and walked off. A door slammed shut and the TV finally regained some life.

Another set of footsteps echoed from the kitchen. A man left the kitchen and approached the couch. The man is my father, William Peon. He’s a rather sickly looking man. Without his shirt on, people could see his ribs poking through. He never grew a beard, either. His chin was so clean of hair that if it weren’t for the dirt staining his skin, it’d look like a newborn fresh from the hospital, fresh from any imperfections.

Just from first look, people wouldn’t expect the anger hiding within him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen father talking in a normal tone. He either sounded angry or tired of everything. There was never a genuine word that escaped his mouth. No compassion. No pride. Anytime he talked, I only ever got the idea that he never wanted this. 

He sat down next to me, and I looked the complete opposite way from him. He never wanted me to make eye contact with him since he sees that as a challenge for his authority. I never really got why, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that I should never look him in the eyes. 

Moaning and stretching, he bent down under the coffee table in front of us and grabbed a red cardboard box and a small container that originally stored cheese balls. The only thing in it now is a green substance that gave off a strange smell. I asked what it was, but he would give me a strange look and tell me it ain’t none of my business. 

He opened the box, and inside it was a lot of yellowish paper. He opened the lid of the container and grabbed a bit of the green stuff, placed it in the center of the paper, then began rolling it up. Once it was nice and tight, he dug in his pants pocket and took out a lighter. He held the blunt up to his lips, lit the paper, and the air filled with a strange smelling smoke. I scooted away from him and held my nose, still not looking him in the eye.

He let the blunt fall from his lips and smoke escaped his mouth, spreading out with the glorious freedom it finally experienced. His eyes went wide, and he doubled over, holding his hand to his mouth as he began coughing up a storm. They were the coughs of a man slowly losing what he once valued, but can no longer sustain effectively.

For a brief second, I looked at my father. Those coughs sounded so agonizing that I actually felt concerned for him. It’s a strange thing, isn’t it? Feeling concern for the person that I hate the most on the entire planet? What a strange concept? Imagine feeling concern for someone that if given the opportunity, they’d sell out their family just for a fleeting sense of comfortability.

Suddenly, he looked up and looked in my direction. I quickly turned my head and stared away, not daring to look anymore. If he caught me, he’d throw a fit that only a toddler could rival.

“What are you watching?” The man asked.

This is probably just a test for something. He would never address me to ask about such a casual thing. Anytime he called me, he wanted me to either do something for him or excuse my reason for being born. 

“Look at me.”

It’s just another test. Don’t lose it. Don’t look.

“I said look at me.”

I felt a hand grab the top of my head, and he forcefully turned my head toward the TV. My neck began aching from the force at which he grabbed me. My heart thumped a million miles an hour as I wondered what I did now to deserve this.

“What is this show?” He asked once more, with even less patience.

“I don’t know. I just turned it here and didn’t check the title.”

Did he not like the show? Does he object to it for some reason? What’s going to happen to me?

“That kid, with the red and white hat. Wouldn’t you agree that he’s special?”

I looked at the screen as the kid sent his pets to fight for him in a tournament. He was commanding them with such capability that I wish I could’ve watched the rest of the shows. I want to know how he did it. I want to know why he kept pushing ahead. It was all a mystery to me. The very fact he could still push on despite one of his monsters falling, yet he still had a determined smile on his face. It was proof he was something special.

“Yeah, he is.”

“Yet, here you are, not doing anything. You were born, then proceeded to leech off me, and you don’t even have the balls to be like that kid.”

He grabbed the remote and shut off the TV. I could see father’s and my reflection on the black screen.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I thought about it for a bit. What did I want to be when I grow up? What is there that I can do? Is there any sort of skill I have that no one else can provide, or am I just going to become another failure? Those were the thoughts that went through my mind, but only less complicated since I’m very young at this point in time.

“I don’t know.”

Father leaned forward and looked at himself in the reflection of the TV. I looked at my reflection also and I saw my head turned to my father. My father’s reflection also looked at my reflection self, but we never looked at each other. 

“When I was your age, my parents said I was special for as long as I could remember. Mom would take me to carnivals, saying that I deserved them for making good grades. Dad would by me presents, telling me I did a good job helping him change the oil from his truck. They were good people. They lavished me in prizes and praise, saying that I’ll grow up to be someone legendary.

“However, I was denied scholarship after scholarship to my dream college. I wanted to be an artist and craft sculptures that would one day be in museums. Millions would come just to see my work that I crafted with my own two hands. They’d sell and I could live in a mansion, supporting the two people that took care of me.

“Now, here’s the thing. I wasn’t necessarily denied any scholarships. I mailed in letters and resumes and everything, but I never received anything. I wanted something. Even if that something was a denial, that would tell me they were getting through, but nothing ever returned.

“Then I learned the truth. Mom, your grandmother, was dying of breast cancer. They tried their damndest to keep it from me, but when I came home from my part-time job and saw Mom gone and Dad bawling in his rocking chair, I knew the worst had happened. When I tried to comfort him, he told me why no college ever contacted me. After I put my mail in the mailbox, He would go out there and take my letters and resumes out and burn them. Mom loved me, and when they learned that she didn’t have much longer to live, he did everything in his power to keep me and Mom together. He never told Mom, but if she were alive, I would bet my life savings she’d have slapped him senseless.”

Father raised his blunt to his lips and took another puff. He breathed in deeply, closing his eyes so he could focus only on his breathing. Once enough poison entered his lungs, he exhaled, coughing all the while. His eyes looked downcast and lost, but in the reflection, he was still looking at me. 

“Then I met your mother. I never told you how she and I met, but we went to the same high school. We dated for a year, then broke up. Once Mom died and I learned the truth from Dad, I fell in a slump. I was so out of it I didn’t even try to resend those college letters. My mind was all over the place. I couldn’t even hear my inner voice.

“So when I saw your mother in the grocery store, working a part-time job for money, I asked her out again. We went on date after date, and after a week, I asked her to marry me. I thought she would say no. I thought she would tell me we should grow up a bit more and earn more money and get careers before we did anything like that. Shit, the ring I proposed to her with was a cheap plastic ring I got from Dollar General. 

“But she said yes.” Father chuckled to himself, looking back at a moment far gone and forgotten. “We were both young and dumb. I was seeking someone to tell me I’m special and matter, but I don’t know what she wanted from me. Did she actually think I loved her for her?”

Father stayed silent for a bit, scratching his chin as he wracked his brain for an answer. I don’t think he ever found the answer to that question. Not even to this day.

“Well, we got married. But first I needed a proper ring, so I went to Dad. He denied me any money, saying that I was special enough to buy one myself. Those weren’t his exact words, but I’d like to believe they were. Because he didn’t give me the money, I had to go to some unsavory people. I got the money, bought the rings, got more money for the wedding, and next month we were married and on the pathway to living our dreams. Nineteen and married, the ideal life, wouldn’t you say?”

He shook his head, his smile disappearing as a scowl fell to replace it. The stranger quickly turned back to my father as the scowl appeared on his face. I calmed down as father returned to his normal self. Him actually smiling concerned me more than anytime he ever got angry. 

“Then you were born. The third biggest mistake of my life. When you were born, I didn’t even have an actual job. I took art commissions from people to make things like book covers and flier art, but that didn’t pay well. Your mother was also working minimum wage, and we lived with her parents. But then she got pregnant, and they decided to kick her out, calling her a whore and other choice words. I wanted to kick their teeth in right then, but she held me back from doing it.

“We were homeless, expecting a kid, and overall, I hated living in general. So I went back to my old friends. They paid for the house, a few baby accessories, and a few other things.” Father looked at the container. “But I can’t pay them back. If it weren’t for all those things, I wouldn’t be here, in debt, and addicted to living.”

He took one last puff from his blunt and grabbed an ashtray. He smashed the blunt against the bottom of the tray, crinkling into a small ball. His reflection was still looking at me, not tearing his eyes away from reflection me. A black tar began dripping out of the TV and fell onto the carpet. If father was looking, then he’d be pissed to hell and back that the carpet got stained. But his reflection didn’t look away.

“You know, I’ve always hated my family name. Peon. It’s such an awful name. In elementary school, the children would bully me, saying how someone peed on me. They weren’t very clever.

“How bad was my luck to be born into a family with such an awful name? I don’t know. Back when I was still in high school, my history teacher was teaching us about old China. The rich of old China would use slaves to do all the manual labor, to pay back their debts or whatever, while they sat back and reaped all the benefits. Granted, it’s not like that’s changed much, but the point still stands. You know what those people were called. Peons. Our last name comes from the name of a Chinese slave. 

“Once I learned that, I denied my name for so long. I told myself that I’d change my name when I turned eighteen. I’d change it to something like Freeman. That has a nice ring to it. William Freeman. But, I never did. And I still won’t. 

“For the longest time, I’ve believed that I was put on this planet for something. There had to be something I could do that others couldn’t. I wanted that thing to be my art, but I was denied that, by both myself and this shit stain called a universe. I still wanted to feel special, so I married the woman that would always tell me that. At least for a time. But, once you were born, and I still hadn’t done anything with my life, I learned that I’m not special. I never was. Being special is a ruse that I told myself in order to keep pushing. I have nothing to keep me going now.”

As the tar dripped from the TV faster and faster and at an alarmingly massive rate, I saw father’s reflection shift. His reflection went from looking at my reflection to looking at the TV. Now that he wasn’t staring at me anymore, I took the moment to look at him to see how he’s doing. 

I turned my head, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something. As I turned my head to look at him, my reflection, previously looking at my father’s reflection, turned to look at the TV. That’s when the realization struck me of what was happening. 

I turned my head slowly and met my father, eye to eye. His eyes were bloodshot and tears fell onto his dirty face, stained by hours spent in his office. This was the first time I’ve seen my father cry, and it’s the only time I’ve seen him cry. After this moment, we’d live life as if this whole event never happened. But it did. I know it did. It lives within my mind, so no matter how silent we stay about it, the fact that I can see it in my mind helped me remember it was real.

He grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me, looking at me with desperation. Tar began dripping from the walls behind him, but that didn’t matter. I could only look at him. I forget how similar he is to me. We both have the same nose. Our foreheads have one permanent wrinkle that seems to never disappear. Even our hair looked the same. The only difference between us was that our eyes were different colors, him having green eyes compared to my blue.

“You are not special either. You have never been special. The moment you were born, you were only a pain at my side. You are a needle, slowly jabbing at me, waiting for me to bleed to death. But that doesn’t mean that you have to stay that way. I don’t care what you do in life, but whatever you do, be so good at it people have to recognize you. Become someone that people will point to when they’re children ask what they should be like in the future. 

“You may not be special now, but you can make yourself special. Please, become better than me. Don’t be another Peon. You’re my last chance.”

His tears began turning black as he spoke longer and longer. The walls turned from the dull gray to a colorless black that hurt to see. The void moved around the room, slowly covering everything. The void covered the cardboard box filled with rolling paper, and as soon as it did, the void slowly broke it down until there was nothing left. 

The table began disappearing along with everything else. It slowly creeped up the couch and covered my father. The void falling from his eyes covered him first, trapping his entire head. His head began slowly disappearing as the void traveled along his body. Once his head disappeared, his body slowly followed, and so did the rest of him. 

Despite the horror, I didn’t do anything. No reaction. No struggle. I merely accepted my fate and let myself slowly get devoured by the void. 

The void consumed me, covering me slowly but with efficiency. It started at my feet and worked its way up. Once the void reached my knees, my feet began disappearing. What’s strange is that it didn’t hurt. It felt like a huge weight was lifted off my mind. The more that disappeared, the more weightless I felt, and it felt so freeing. I wanted to become lighter and use my newly found weightlessness to fly. Where would I fly to? Does it really matter when I’m so happy?

After my legs disappeared, my body was next. The void crawled on my stomach and separated to my arms and neck. Once my body began disappearing, my arms were next. Then it worked its way to my chin.

The void crawled onto my face and covered my eyes. I could see nothing but darkness. The weight lifted. 

***

I opened my eyes and took in a deep breath. My heart beat so fast I didn’t know if I was having a heart attack. I forgot where I was, so when I saw I was tied to a chair, I began struggling like no tomorrow. The struggle was so fierce that the chair began rocking back and forth until it lost balance. 

The chair fell to its side, and it took me with it. I yelped as the chair collided against the ground. I groaned in pain as my head banged against the floor. It might lead to a concussion, but it’s not like it matters anymore. With the head bang, I remembered where I was and what predicament I find myself in. 

I opened my eyes and looked at my arm. There had to be a few bruises, at the very least. It could have broken as well, because that’s just how badly it hurts right now. I didn’t expect to see the arm of the chair snapped. Along with it, the ropes loosened a little with the friction from the chair arm breaking.

I stare at the miracle, mind boggled at my luck. There’s a chance and I have to take it.