Over Here Son

This piece was published on wunderkammer as part of a ‘writers as kids’ curated show. The full piece, with photos, can be read here

Over here son. Now smile. But you never do. Just that smirk that seems wiser than you are. How much can you know already?

Someday you will wear a shirt like mine every day, then it won’t be special like it is today. Someday when your arms are long and your chest broad, you may not even fit in a shirt like this. You have your mother’s features, not mine.

You want to wear the shirt now, you say “Dad can I put it on again?” in your socked feet outside the bathroom in the morning. So I let you put it on. You wear it all day until your mother makes you come inside and put something else on. She’s worried that you’ll stain all of my shirts. I don’t care.

The shirts are not to be celebrated—they’re uniforms we grown men wear as we drive to our jobs in the city and back to our homes in the suburbs. We’re all playing make believe, son. My father fought in the War to End All Wars. He killed eight men in the South Pacific. He said “It isn’t hard to kill somebody. You just pull a trigger. The hard thing is to live with it.” He never talked about the war more than that. You never met him but he was a good man. He didn’t talk much, so I don’t know all of his stories. When I’m gone, will my ghost remember all the stories I should have told you? Will there be anything in my life worth telling?

My old man risked his life in the War to End All Wars. I work in an office park.

This is the world my father left me. What world am I leaving you, son. What will you be when it’s time to wear a white shirt, just like all the other drones, out into the world we call “real.” Is there a world for you beyond office parks and war?