Don't Open The Well Read Free Page A

father,
slowly disappear into the darkness; Michael wondered why he would be heading
towards the crematorium at such an hour. It was just past midnight, but it
occurred to him that his father wouldn’t go to the crematorium unless he meant
to burn something – but what?
    A part of him wished it would be his father that
would burn within the ever hungry mouth of the incinerator.
    The crematorium was ominous in the moonless night,
just a smudge on the dark horizon but Michael no longer feared the crematorium
and what it contained – he had seen hundreds of bodies. In the end they all
looked the same, just like his father had said on that first day – “sacks of
blood and bone.”
    Michael slipped into his shoes, and followed his
Father’s tracks, made by his knees digging and dragging through the dirt as he
crawled along the ground.  The tracks ultimately led to the very place
Michael had assumed they would - the crematorium.

As quietly as possible, he pushed open the door to the old, grey building, and
was immediately struck by the acrid stench of smoke, noxious and suffocating,
emanating from within – it was the furnace but what was his father burning?
Michael took his shirt off, and held it over his mouth as he walked deeper into
the crematorium. The lights were off but that didn’t surprise him, his father
had crawled into the building, after all.   When he arrived at the
furnace, he saw the door was wide open, and inside was a pile of clothes. He
immediately recognized his mother’s wedding dress. He hadn’t even been born when
they were married, but she had worn it for him.
    She was so beautiful in it, and Michael was struck
by a rush of memories that suddenly filled his mind as the dress, amidst the
other clothes, began to smolder and disappear in the hungry flames. Anger once
again filled his heart and he clenched his teeth, the muscles in his jawline
standing out like cords as he mourned all that had been lost.
    Not everything…
    At his feet, he was disgusted to find his father lay
prone on the ground, a whiskey bottle just out of reach of his grasping
fingers. He stood watching, until the acrid smoke billowing from the open
incinerator began to burn his throat and eyes, making them water but still, he
smiled, despite the pain.
    It was the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to
rid himself of his alcoholic father once and for all.
    Michael kicked the whiskey bottle out of reach, he
wouldn’t give his father the comfort of a last drink.  No, he would die in
the dark, alone and suffering just like Michael’s youth had all those years
earlier.
    He kicked his father hard in the gut, drawing a gasp
of pain from him before turning and walking off, leaving his father to his
fate.
    “Ain’t no good thing you can’t turn rotten, dad….”

Michael pushed open the door to the outside, and immediately took a deep breath
of the fresh night air.  Before leaving, he turned back and stared into
the black smoke filled passageway, half expecting his father to come stumbling
out – but he didn’t.  He watched as the billowing dark clouds lit up with
an angry orange glow from within, the clothes inside steadily disappearing in a
wave of hungry flame.
    He closed the door gently before turning and walking
back towards the house, a smile on his face.

Chapter 6
     
    The next morning, Michael calmly called the police,
breaking down at the right moment as he explained the discovery of his father’s
blackened body within the incinerator.
    It was immediately ruled an accidental death. 
He’d been too inebriated, and due to carelessness on his part, had died of
smoke inhalation from the burning clothes. 
    Of course, Michael had told them of his mother’s
death years earlier and how it had broken his father’s heart, turned him into a
raging alcoholic. With a few well-placed sobs here and there, they bought it
hook, line and sinker – why wouldn’t they?
    Besides, thought Michael, as he watched the patrol
cars