It’s been about 10 years since my father died.
In the time since, I’ve come to realize that I really never knew much about him. He spent enough time in my life to make it through the usual journey for parents: he went from god figure when I was very young, to tyrant, to embarrassment in my teenage years, and lived long enough for me to finally recognize him as just another adult, like me, who was doing the best he could with the same limited information that rest of us have. Which, ultimately, is more frustrating than anything. Just once I’d like to find someone who actually understood what we’re all doing here, and that really should be your parents. Finding out that they’re just as lost as you just makes you feel worse.
What I do know about him was that he came from a long line of dungeon goblins, was a proud union member, and put in long shifts guarding room 8d at the local dungeon.
Sitting in my den with a glass of whiskey in my hand, long after the wife had gone to bed, I decided that it was high time that I saw where he worked.
***
I called in sick and took my dad’s old Volvo. I hadn’t touched it since he died, so it needed a jump, and after tapping at the tires a bit to make sure they hadn’t rotted out, I made his commute.
I was surprised to find the employee parking lot empty and the gate broken. The small guard shack at the entrance looked as if someone had tried to burn it down, and the remaining structure was covered in graffiti, most of it in goblin. Most of it didn’t make much sense, but one phrase did stand out. “Fight the dominant topology.”
Whatever the hell that meant.
I figured that his key and employee badge were in his glovebox, and that said glovebox was likely trapped. I opened the door just a crack, and stuck in the only thing I had with me that I didn’t mind getting destroyed, a B&G Warehouse pen. I poked away at the inside of the glovebox with the pen for a few minutes, fully expecting some sort of trap to be activated, but hearing nothing.
Finally, I worked up some courage, and getting myself as far removed from the glovebox as I could, opened it. Nothing happened. I peered inside, and sure enough, saw his employee badge, key ring, and the skeleton of what I assumed was the trap, a very dead and once likely poisonous snake. It must have expired some time after my dad died. Poor bastard died, slowly starving to death protecting something no one was going to steal.
I reached out to take the badge and the snake’s eyes glowed blue and the thing game to life, jumping at my face, its desiccated fangs going for my eyes. Without going into gory (and embarrassing) detail, the next few minutes were filled with a lot of screaming (me) thrashing around (both of us) and eventually the sound of tiny little bones being smashed to bits (the snake). Afterwards, there was a few minutes of me cursing my dead father, who was still trying to kill me after all these years, then me grabbing the badge and keys and getting out of the Volvo, brushing bits of snake skeleton off my shirt.
Next Week: I visit Dad's office.
