Chills and Sweat

Chills and sweat shouldn’t mix. At least not on a sweltering, mid-July night.

It had been almost four years since we’d heard his voice, almost four years since his comforting smile reassured us that everything would be all right, almost four years of hospital trips to sit and hold his hand, all the while trying to keep hope alive.

This night, unlike most, my deep sleep was oddly interrupted. A gentle, rhythmic whirring wafted from the alley below our house. I glanced over at my sister, whose steady in-and-out breathing let me know she hadn’t heard the noise. Listening again, the sound continued, and a subconscious instinct drew me towards the paint-chipped, open window, just in time to glimpse the backend of a 10-speed bicycle retreating behind our garage.

Before I could stop myself, I was racing down the back porch steps. Blind hope outweighing not only the burning of the black, rubber pavers under my five-year-old toes, but also any thought of possible hesitation.

I silently peered around the garage, but there was no sign of the bike or its mysterious rider. Just the typical emptiness of the alley. Where was he? Had he cut between the houses to the street? Then, a faint clue: whir…clank…whir.

Tiptoeing my way around the garage and down the rocky path between our house and the neighbor’s, I wondered what I might say to him. Not wanting to startle or scare him away, I took extra care to ensure my footsteps were ninja-quiet.

As I approached the sweet-smelling, lilac tree that divided the pathway from the front sidewalk, I crouched down to listen to the static of the darkness, waiting for anything unusual. Creeping forward, the shadows of the bushes protected me from view. Past one house, then the next, my confidence was growing.

Without warning, though, I looked up to see him standing there, back to me, staring intently forward. A formidable silhouette in the dead of night. Gathering my courage and taking one final deep breath, I began to say, “I…” but was immediately cut short when he slowly rotated to face me.

Steepling his bony, decrepit fingers in front of his menacing smile, was NOT in fact my dad, but instead the sinister asylum owner from Beauty and the Beast.

Stunned silence washed over me, and it only took one sentence, one slight movement, from him for my heart to sink lower than it ever had in my five, short years of life.

“So,” he mused, as he barely shifted to his left and motioned towards the ground, “you’ve come to see your father?” An ominous laugh escaping his lips.

There, in the hazy darkness, sat a single tombstone scrawled with my dad’s name on it, while a stereotypical, yet still soul-crushing, funeral song began to play.

“Daddy…”

Bolting straight upright in bed, sweat dripping down my face, goosebumps covering my body, and tears filling my eyes, I try desperately to calm my racing heartbeat.

Two months later, my dad was gone, but the dream, with all its trauma and gruesomeness, revisited me back year after year.