DAYDREAMING

My dad is dying.

It’s been an hour since coming to this waiting room, if you can call it that. It's only a couch that looked like it belonged to someone’s grandma with a sealed plastic cover and a fold up chair in the corner. My skin keeps getting stuck on the plastic, so I can't help but keep having to move around. It doesn’t help that the air is stagnant too, it’s making me breathe harder than usual. 

My dad is almost non-existent. He had to leave after my 4th birthday because of my mom’s restraining order against him. The order was only for two years, but after it expired he never reached out again. Mom says he had every opportunity to see me, but she won’t tell me anything else about him. Except for when I misbehaved and she said that I was just like him. It would be like poison on her tongue, and she wouldn’t want to look at me for the rest of the day.

 My eyes are strained and bloodshot, it’s been awhile since I’ve slept. Especially with the hospital lighting being so harsh. A faint frequency keeps ringing in my ears. It’s difficult to stop picking at my hangnail. My odor is probably disgusting to smell, but no one is here except me. Being alone feels oddly comforting. It’s only ever been me anyways.

His face always comes up blank whenever I try to remember him. One time when I got lost in the grocery store, and clinged onto a stranger’s leg even though he kept pushing me off. The linoleum concrete was cold, but I would stand back up and hold his leg again, desperately asking him when he'd come home. The stranger wouldn’t answer my pleas. He finally pushed me hard enough away, that when my eyes looked up he was gone. My mom found me a few minutes later laying on the floor. My voice couldn’t help but ask her the same question, “When is dad coming home?” She disregarded what I said, and went through her day pretending she didn’t hear it. 

After some time, I began to wonder if I was a ghost because my voice was impossible to hear. 

“Visiting hours are now open.” The entrance to the hospital wing makes a sound when it unlocks. “Please go all the way to the end of the hallway,” the voice chirped from the speakers.

My sweaty skin peels off the plastic couch for one last time, and heads through the entrance. The frequency gets a little louder when I get closer. Once through the doorway, the door locks behind me.

No one ever bullied me for not having a dad. My mom married six months later to my stepfather. We moved to a new town and told everyone that he was my biological dad. One time someone said my face looked identical to his. When I corrected them that he wasn’t actually my dad, my mom was very upset. My cheek still stings when the memory comes around.

That man she married was someone I could never like. He was friendly to all our neighbors, worked a respectable job to provide, and spoiled my mom. When it was just us by ourselves at home my stepdad didn’t pay any attention to me. Until puberty hit. Then he paid too much attention. It felt dirty. As a teenager, daydreaming often was just to avoid the nightmares.

A pit in my stomach grows. The ceilings are unnecessarily tall, about 12 feet high. The walls are light bluish-green like the color of scrubs usually is on TV. The windowless hallway stretches longer than a trackfield. As I begin walking, I notice my thumb begin to bleed, and it’s gotten on my shoes. My hangnail is picked on too harshly. I suck on my finger to stop the bleeding. When I look back up, a singular picture frame hangs on the wall.

It’s a picture of my dad holding me, my tiny body fitting snug in his embrace. He was holding me in his arms when I was peacefully sleeping. His face was smudged and It’s difficult to see his expression, but he was gripping very tightly like he was afraid to drop me. 

The only thing to my knowledge is his name. It’s on my birth certificate when I found it, but when searching his name online, a few dozen men popped up. There was some weeding out to the ones that were too young, too old, or lived in other countries. It left only a few men as options. He could be this software engineer that lives in Silicon Valley or a former veteran now nurse that’s been working in the ICU or a car repair man that owns his own shop with a wife and kids. 

Before I knew it, the hallway was almost at the end. The door to my dad’s hospital room seemingly glowed in the cracks. The pit of my stomach grew bigger, and it made me want to force myself to vomit. My hangnail opened again and my hand was littered with blood. The tinnitus in my ears makes my ears close to popping the vessels. My strained eyes began to have a burning sensation, and there was dark spotting in my vision. 

I don’t want to go inside. 

My eyes shut tightly and wished this hallway would stretch longer, endlessly even. Because when I meet my dad, he will tell me he regretted having me. His success was only achieved by being childless. He will be a drunkard that beats his wife. The type of man that asks for money and never will see me again. The proof that my existence was truly worthless, abandoning me for a second time, and ensuring my presence as a ghost in this world.

The floor faintly rumbled, and pushed me out of my nightmare. The fluorescently-lit hallway extended that door to the edge of my vision’s horizon, and my body is back where I started. Everything remained the same uncomfortable way. The pit in my stomach still remained, but it was smaller. The ringing became more faint. My eyes were strained, but not burning. It made me relieved to have the chance to go back to my daydreaming.

I began to wonder if he remembered my birthday. If he was as handsome as my aunt would recall. If he was knowledgeable and could teach me everything he knew. If he was just waiting for the right time to come see me. If he searched for me, but couldn’t find me because I moved away. If he was in love with my mom and wasn’t able to ever remarry. If he would be proud of me. If he wanted to have his daughter to be a part of his life.