Margaret Roach
The Father Of: The Husband Of
One
For all sakes and purposes, you are a young man. You need to be a young man. It doesn’t matter who you usually are, today, you are a young man. Close your eyes and take a moment. You are a young man. Nice, isn’t it? You are a young man around twenty. The specific age doesn’t really matter here. All that matters is that you are young. You don’t even have a beard yet. It won’t matter for long, because today is the day that you become a man.
Currently, you are standing in the kitchen. Well, you are cowering more than standing. Standing was not the best word choice, but despite this fact, you are in the kitchen. It is a kitchen of a bachelor. There are three bottles of water, leftover Chinese food, and an ancient jar of mustard in your fridge; you should be worried about the mold growing.
You feel shocked by my appearance, but still, you do your best to be polite with your large eyes on the floor. Human eyes are not meant to view ethereal creatures this closely. Even in this dream, it is too much for you. There are things about me that you cannot comprehend. Let me explain slowly. I am made out of teeth, flesh, and all things holy. It’s not too different from you. The eyes that cover my body are used to seeing everything at once. The teeth are made to make me appear friendly. They are smiling at you. You smile back. So little teeth. The flesh is here because I am made out of flesh. You eat meat. You are aware of flesh. Don’t be a baby. You won’t be able to understand the last bit.
Onto the point - that you are going to be a father. Congratulations! You look at me with awe and a little bit of horror. This is normal for a parent. You feel shocked. You are a man of God and only dream of touching women (you know what you dream). You’re going to be a stepfather to the Messiah! That nice lady you were dating? She’s not a slut! Congratulations! She was chosen by God to give birth to your savior.
You are not someone meant to be the focus. You must have known this. All your life, you’ve sort of been there. People never noticed you. You know this. There isn’t much about you to notice. You’re a nice young man, but you don’t go beyond that. Sorry. They built you like this for a reason. It was never going to be any other way. Fate is a wicked twisted thing and you should know about it. You are now weeping. Tears fall onto your cheeks and they taste like nothing. You are crying because you are a young man and you have a purpose.
You nod your head yes. Up and down. You are aware of the smoothness of your chin as it touches your neck. You should ask questions at this moment. Maybe you would receive answers and clarity, but none are asked. I would answer them all. Go ahead, ask me the meaning of the universe. I know. I know how you will die, I know what you dream about, and I know everything about you. Background checks are important parts of choosing the next messiah’s father. You can ask questions.
You don’t, because you are a young man and you are a man of faith and you ask no questions.
Two
You are laying in bed next to your young and pretty wife. She sleeps peacefully, but she is always peaceful. Her lips are always a straight line and despite the fact that her world is changing, she remains peaceful. Do you love her? You ask yourself this question multiple times a day (you should have asked it earlier - the answer is no). You can touch her, you know. The whole sacred virgin thing is so outdated. She would let you touch her, but you don’t. Instead, you lay there staring at her, at the way her eyelashes are so long they touch her cheek. You’re even doing it now in a dream. Stop that! Look at me. I have something to tell you.
You remain a young man. A little bit older now that you have to worry about people other than yourself. Still, you are young. People in the future will like to paint you as old and decaying because they also like to imagine your wife as a virgin with an uninterested old man as a husband. But, when I look at you - all I can see is a young man. You leave socks on the floor for your wife to pick up, but you’re growing.
You need to leave. There is a man and he wants to kill your son. He probably wants to kill you too. He doesn’t care that much about you; it’s more by association. You feel good about this, but then you feel overwhelmed by guilt. The child sleeps in the cot next to your bed. You stare at him. Most of your life is spent staring at other people.
He looks like his mother. His lips are a straight line and his eyelashes reach out towards his cheek like vines looking for water. You love him. You’re a good dad. But, you know why people want to hurt him. He’s strange. Sorry, but he’s so strange. Look, he’s the messiah. But, he’s also a pretentious mama's boy. He is an insufferable little brat who really needs to learn a lesson. You would have bullied him as a child because he’s just a little too off. You don’t have the words to explain why he’s so strange. I do, but you don’t think to ask me. You’re such a good father. A good father just lets his son be. You spend most of your day thinking about how to be a better father (this is as good as it gets). He will need to grow up all by himself.
I don’t know where you should go, maybe the desert. It will be nice for you all. With all that sand, you can pretend it’s the beach. It will be a vacation and you need a vacation. This is not your home. It’s simply a place you are in for the moment. The desert will be your next home and will be a happy family there. I promise. You just have to be brave enough to go. Bravery is what makes you a man. That and a long beard. It’s really not that much work. Better men than you have done it hundreds of times.
I am watching you as you lay in bed watching your wife. You don’t weep anymore and I wonder why you do not cry. I have so many eyes, but they never cry. They are more practical than yours, but if I had your eyes I would cry in this little pathetic moment. You lay in bed and finally, you lay on your back staring up at the ceiling. Your eyes are blue and they are dry and the new beard growing on your face is starting to itch.
Three
You are standing outside the tent. It is mid-afternoon which is when you are not supposed to be standing outside the tent. The sun beats down on you and makes the dark hair on top of your head feel like it’s burning. If I wanted this dream to be more exciting, I would let it burn. I do not.
The landscape in front of you is strange or at least, you find it strange. All it is is a landscape, but you are deeply disturbed by it. It is flat except for dark mountains at a very far distance. Sometimes you walk towards them, but you never reach them. They are always far away; no matter how long you walk and sometimes you walk for miles. The sand is not the sand that you expected. It is not the pale gold of childhood tales, but a thick dark brown. You believe it to be wet, but you are in the desert. Everything is dry.
You are no longer a young man, but you are not old. Your beard is long now, but not as long as I expected. I thought you would be an old man by now (life can’t be easy out here), but you are middle-aged. You resent me for saying this but smile politely at me. We are friends now.
I have something to tell you. You can go home now. You can leave the desert. The man who wanted you dead has been killed. I did it myself. The man simply wouldn’t die. It was taking too long. The story had stalled in this spot and we all needed to move on. Your son is almost a young man, he can’t spend his formative years in the desert. He’ll be even weirder than he is already and I truly cannot deal with that. He needs friends other than his mother. Frankly, I was getting bored of this part of the story. The pacing is too slow and how many times can you listen to someone complain about being thirsty? It’s desert. Of course, it’s dry. You are thirsty right now. Your throat hurts and your tongue feels stuck.
You need to go home. Go back to your old apartment and stand where you used to stand. Stand next to your wife. Stand next to your son. It will be a moment that you will cherish. You just need to leave. Are you sinking into the sand? Is that why you stay still? This was never going to be forever and you hate it here. Some days, you think about becoming a sculptor and designing things out of the sand. You know it’s a stupid idea. The next place you go will be better than this one. You deserve good things ahead.
You don’t look at me and go into the tent. I follow you inside. It’s rude. It’s rude of you, but you don’t really mean to be so rude to me. You’re lashing out. Humans are all the same. Your wife sleeps on a mat on the floor and your son sleeps a little bit too close to her. He doesn’t look like you. Sometimes, you like to pretend that he does. Not in his looks – he is soft and pale – you are not that. You feel a feeling of both pride and anger. At this moment, you understand why fathers take an ax and murder their sleeping children. You would never murder him because you have become a good man. This is all I ever wanted you to be.
You lay back down on your cot (which is in the corner of the tent) and you think about what needs to be packed.
Four
You decide it is better to take a long way home, so you are standing on an old, lurching ship. You have never been on a ship before and you think this could have been the life for you. (If you had picked this life, you would have died young and in horrible pain.) Something about the way the salt air burns your skin and the way fog settles in your bones that makes you feel like a young man.
You are not a young man anymore. You are very far from a young man. You are old. Sorry, but you are not looking well. You know this. You’re not built for longevity. We didn’t think that you would make it this long. But, here you are! Standing at the head of the ship with your craned neck held as high as it can. I’m proud of you. I’m not meant to be proud of people. I’m designed to look at you with cruel indifference, but I’m proud of the person that you have become despite the paths that your life has taken. Good job.
This is not a meeting of convenience. I’ve come to tell you that despite the fact that the man who wanted you dead is dead, there is another man who wants you dead. You must change course. Jump into the sea if you must. You can’t continue the path you are on if you want your family to be safe. All you have ever wanted is your family to be safe, but you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach.
You turn and look at the son who is sitting on the deck with his eyes closed speaking to someone who is not there. Do you really want to protect this young man? He is a fool. Or at least, you think that he is foolish. All fathers think their sons are fools. You are simply being a good father. His mother sits by him with her lips in a strict line. You believe her lips are too thin for you to kiss. That is why you never have. Keep telling yourself that and maybe one day you’ll believe it to be true.
You are a good man and you will protect your family.
Do you feel regret? I think that you do. When I look at your face, there are no emotions. But your lips are not a perfect line. You are frowning, or maybe you are trying to hold back tears. You could have said no. The first time that I met you, I never said that you had to say yes. And yet here you are. This was your choice. You should smile. Yours is a glorious purpose.
When I look next, you are standing in the middle of the ship, smiling, not because you were chosen for a glorious purpose, but because you still believe that your life will get better. I thought you smarter than that. But you are not.
I know how it ends. It doesn’t get better. You won’t even get a verse in the bible. People will theorize about when you died and how people mourned you, but they won’t know the truth. It doesn’t really matter, but there is something undeniably tragic about it.
I’m spending too much time with you. I’m getting soft.
Stop it! Stop smiling about better things and smile about your glorious purpose. You have a glorious purpose. You just need to appreciate it. Not everyone is important. Some people are there to move the story along.
Margaret Roach is a writer who lives in the Hudson Valley and is currently working on completing her master's in library and information science. She has been published in her college’s literary magazine The Mosaic.
