Unfinished

This piece is unfinished. You may not want to read it if you have issues with reading half of a story.


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My dad was at my last birthday party. I remember it really well because it was my 14th birthday and he gave me a nice buck knife which I slept with every night. I don’t know where it is, now, though because everything changed so much since that day. My dad went to work one day and never came home. My mom seems like she is someone else now. Home doesn’t feel like home anymore. I don’t know how else to explain it, but I think about that birthday because that’s how I remember my Dad.

My dog looks up at me with his sad eyes. “You should think about something else,” he said. “Whenever you think about your Dad you get sad.”

He hasn’t always talked. In fact, he used to never talk.

I don’t like it very much when he talks.

I try to ignore him but he always goes on. “It’s important for you to grow up and be tough and stop being sad”.

I don’t really believe that’s true so I go on ignoring him and pretty soon my Mom comes in to talk to me and she always has M&Ms and she always gives me some. He never talks to me when Mom is in the room and he almost never talks to me for the rest of the night after she leaves. “Are you OK? I thought I heard you talking” she says, and I always tell her, “I’m fine, Mom, I wasn’t talking.” I have to say that because I know she thinks that Dad dying had some kind of effect on me.

“It’s 10:30. That’s lights out, time to sleep”. She left. I turn off the TV and the light and turn over. The dog stays on the bed, too but now he just looks at me. Sometimes I think he’s mad because I don’t like to talk to him. I don’t care. I just turn over and go to sleep.

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My Mom always gives me vitamins in the morning. I take them because I know she gives them to me because she cares. I don’t think I really need to take them, though. Today I played checkers with this neighbor kid Bill for hours I think, and he’s terrible. After lunch I was sitting there playing with him and the dog talked to me. “This guy sucks” he said. Bill didn’t hear him, and I was glad because Bill is kind of big. “You’re thinking about your Dad again, and how you used to play games”. I didn’t answer him because I didn’t want to talk to him in front of Bill and besides, I didn’t want to call attention to the fact that he was talking. Every once in awhile, I’ll be talking to a friend or sitting in a class or whatever and that dog starts in to talking. As long as I ignore him, no one seems to care very much either way. They are real good at ignoring him too, I guess. I hate that he follows me everywhere, but he’s family, just like my Mom and Dad. He’s in the picture, too.

I went back to my room after playing with Bill. Naturally the dog was his old chatty self. I tried to read some but I couldn’t concentrate because of the dog. I finally looked right at him. “What do you want?” I asked him. He looked at me for a moment before saying “What happened to that knife your Dad gave you?”

I hadn’t thought about that for a while. Both Mom and Dad would yell at me if they came in to wake me up and found me holding it in my sleep. Sometimes they said it would be open. “Did they take it from me?” I asked the dog.

“Wouldn’t you?” he replied.
I started to feel bad about that conversation. I missed my Dad more than I thought. I never really think about the knife except that the dog keeps bringing it up. He brings up my Dad a lot too. I looked at the picture for a long while, Mom, Dad, the dog, and me.

My Mom came in the room just then and reminded me that I had to go to this group.

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My mom signed me up for this group on account of she felt like I was acting different than other kids, which I can’t really deny given that the dog keeps talking to me and forcing me to ignore him in company. And, naturally, he goes with me to group, and that consists of a circle of chairs and 5 other people, most of which have real problems. And, of course, Dr. Dan who is this guy that pretty much just makes sure everyone has a turn.

I really hate going to group because I never really feel like I have anything much to say and besides, the dog is talking all the time. This time he started harassing me about how I should talk about missing my Dad, and why I don’t have that knife anymore and I just stared down because I know the others are just being polite and ignoring him just like I do. Dr. Dan is fairly insistent that I say something today. He keeps saying “Keith, how are you doing today” and most days I mutter something about being sad and kind of lonely, because it’s hard for me to make friends because this dog won’t shut up.

I looked up at Dr. Dan and said “I miss my Dad today”. And do you know Dr. Dan looked genuinely shocked which surprised me.

“What do you miss about him?” he asked.

“We used to play games, and he gave me this great knife for my birthday” I said.

“He gave you a knife?” he asked and it seemed like he emphasized that word.

“Yes”, I said, “a beautiful knife with antler inlay but I don’t know what happened to it”.

“What do you think happened to it?” he asked.

I thought for a moment. The dog looked at me and quizzically cocked his head. “I think they took it from you” he said. I couldn’t answer him on account of the group and Dr. Dan being right there, dutifully ignoring him along with me, and I couldn’t tell Dr. Dan they took it from me because I didn’t know for sure, and because Hell is for liars. I kept quiet for the rest of group because the dog kept looking at me, and it was hard to keep ignoring him.

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Everything keeps changing. I don’t know why I sit and think so much. I didn’t used to. But the dog didn’t always talk to me either. I remember when he first started talking to me – it was right before my Dad got killed. I don’t remember much about what he said; I remember that he just bugged me all the time. He talked so much more back then. It was real hard to have a conversation or study or do anything. It was so bad but then my Dad was killed and everything changed. That’s when we moved and Mom made me go to group and everything and she changed a lot too. I just go along with stuff now because I don’t know what else to do anymore. I don’t go to school now. I look at the picture of me and my Mom and Dad and the dog and I’m just struggling because I feel like something huge is missing.

“What is missing?” said a voice. It’s the dog again. I’m starting to wonder if this is a normal thing, to have this dog talking to me. I noticed that people didn’t act right if I spoke to him and they generally ignore him so I do to, in company.

“Why am I the only person that pays attention to you?” I asked him, and he does that thing again, just looks at me.

“Do you think something is wrong with you?” he says, and funny, I was just starting to wonder that because I don’t remember always going to these group meetings, and staying inside all the time.