Don't Open The Well Read Free

smiling on
occasion, Michael left that afternoon and headed towards his sanctuary feeling
far happier than usual.

The change in his father was curious and he mistakenly allowed a little hope to
creep into his mind.  He followed the creek, but as he did, he detected
the sweet smell of burning wood. Moving further down the creek, the smell
became stronger, and soon, Michael was running full speed to his sycamore,
fearing the worst, the impossible.

When he arrived, he fell to his knees in front of the charred blackened remains
of his tree.  There was little more than a blackened trunk with a few
large branches still attached, devoid of all life. 

Parts of the blackened trunk were still smoldering, smoke rising lazily into
the air above.  Michael cried for the loss of the last remnants of his
innocence. His one and only safe zone had been snatched from him cruelly by his
deranged father and for once, he felt a growing rage steadily burning inside
him. What had once been fear and subservience all at once became a yearning
need for revenge, upon the man who had beaten and burned everything Michael had
ever known out of him until he was nothing but a shell just like his father.
    He wouldn’t be, couldn’t be like him.

That night, Michael arrived to find his father in his recliner, plastered as
always, and grinning like a fool, no doubt pleased with his handy work. But Michael
didn’t say a single word to him.  He didn’t even give his father the
pleasure of showing the slightest hint that his sadistic actions had affected
Michael. His face impassive, betraying no emotion whatsoever, Michael went up
to his room, lay down, and stared at the ceiling until the sun came up.
    Inside him, the
beginnings of an unfamiliar feeling were stirring. Beneath the numbness, the
hatred that had lay dormant since the beatings and the mistreatment at the
hands of his father began, was making its way to the surface.

He didn’t sleep that night, nor did he do anything else – not even move, and to
an observer he might have looked like he was day-dreaming.  He was
thinking of life without his father, thinking of the crematorium and how it
could benefit him.

Chapter 5
     
    Over the years that followed Michael did as he was
told, seldom uttering more than the words “yes sir” and “no sir.”  
    His father had become so smothered in his addiction
to the drink, that he barely even visited the crematorium any more.  This
suited Michael just fine.  He just did what had to be done, and woke up
the next day and did it all over again, an endless repetition of mind numbing
work and school that soon became as routine to him as sleeping, although sleep
wasn’t what it had once been.

One night, just before Michael turned eighteen, he awoke to the sounds of his
father stumbling around the house, more drunk and belligerent than usual. 
It quickly dawned on him why.  It was eight years to the day that his
mother had finally been released from her life of suffering and pain. 
Michael smiled in the darkness as he stood on the landing looking down into the
gloom, seeing nothing.  He couldn’t exactly tell what was going on, but he
didn’t really need to know the details.  His father was suffering and that
was enough. He deserved to suffer for what he had done and if Michael had his
way, he would suffer even more than his mother had years ago.

From downstairs in the darkness, he heard a loud crash as the back door was
slammed shut – his father was going somewhere but where. Going to the window of
his bedroom, he looked out into the night and was pleased to see the stumbling,
crawling figure of his father amongst the weeds of the beaten path that led to
the crematorium, a barely discernible shape in the blackness beyond. As he
watched, a faint smile dancing around his lips, Michael saw that his father was
carrying something under his arm, gripped tightly to his body like a child.
    Watching the pitiful figure of his once proud