Drip. Drip. Drip. The sound never stops, never alters - same pace, same volume. Will it stay like this forever?
Drip. Drip. Drip. I sit on a chair beside you. Can you hear me? Can you feel me? Can you sense I'm even here? My lips aren't moving, but so many words come out from me to you. Are you aware? Can you understand me?
Drip. Drip. Drip. Not even thirty years have passed since the day you walked anxiously, back and forth, along the corridors of this hospital, waiting for the news of my birth. Now I am waiting for the news of your death. Isn't it ironic?
Drip. Drip. Drip. Like an hourglass, with an infinite number of grains in it. I find myself waiting for the last grain to fall. Does it make me cold-hearted? I don't know. There's too much going on inside of me for me to be able to tell.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Could you please make it stop? This sound is driving me insane. What are you doing it for, anyway? Why hang on for so long? There's nothing for you here anymore. I doubt if there ever was. Go away! Go away already! Leave me alone! Just go away and leave me alone!
Drip. Drip. Drip. Do you remember that time, after I got out of the hospital? I was five, or maybe six, and I had broken my arm. It was summer, and it got itchy underneath the cast, and everybody were playing outside, in the sprinklers, and the neighbor's dog - I think his name was Lucky - came back inside and got everybody wet. How I longed to be outside.
Drip. Drip. Drip. I want to be outside now too, but something chains me to this chair. I'm looking at you. You look so old and weak. When did that happen? I know I haven't seen you in a very long time, and still, how much you've changed! No more a tall man, casting a frightening shadow on my lego castle.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Do you remember the time you broke my red plastic guitar? It was my favorite toy. You knew it. You knew it and did it deliberately, to punish me, can't even remember what for. And you never did say you were sorry. Never in my life have I heard you say you were sorry, not even once. Well, it's too late now, Dad, even if you want to. I'm not accepting your apology. I'm not. Do you hear me? I'm not.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Fuck you, Dad. Can you hear me? And fuck all those stupid educational doctrines you've always cared about much more than you ever cared about me. The end always justified the means as far as you were concerned. So what if I got lost in the way. Who cared anyway, right?
Drip. Drip. Drip. Have you ever heard the sound of your own blood dripping, Dad? I did mine. When I slashed my wrists that summer. I've never heard a sweeter sound. And you were so angry, as if anger was what I needed. And you asked which one of my friends put those crazy ideas into my head, 'cause you were sure there was no other explanation. You never did like my friends. I've always wondered if it's possible you knew already then, even though I didn't know myself.
Drip. Drip. Drip. When mom called, she sounded so together. It's her calmness that threw me off. That's actually why I came. I wanted to see how mom was doing, so don't you go around thinking to yourself that I came all the way down here for you.
Drip. Drip. Drip. You always tried to stop my natural flow. You had such an exact path that you had planned for me, long before I was even born. But I wasn't what you had expected. I wasn't what anyone had expected, including myself.
Drip. Drip. Drip. The window is open. We're just above traffic. A nurse is arguing loudly with one of the younger doctors in the hallway. Still, all I seem to be hearing is that annoying dripping sound. Die already, will you? I can't bear that sound much longer. Die! Leave me alone! Free me of that hold you've always seemed to have on me. It was always so overbearing.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Do you even realize how impossible it was to be your son? All those expectations - not just from you, from everybody else too. And even at the early age of four I realized I could never be all that you wanted me to be. But it took me so long to really understand it and even longer to learn to accept it.
Drip. Drip. Drip. But I have accepted it, you know, more or less. Once in a while I still feel sorry for myself for being me, with my life and my specific problems and still I wouldn't give it up. The razor is no longer an option.
Drip. Drip. Drip. I guess what I'm trying to say is... what am I trying to say? You'll keep at your own unchangeable, nonnegotiable pace until you die. I live according to my own pace these days. I've finally found what it is, after all these years.
Drip. Drip. Drip. I guess this is goodbye, Dad. Next time we meet will probably be at your funeral.
Drip. Drip. Drip. I'm slowly closing the door behind me.
May 14, 2002
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