Destroyer of Time: Pyrokinesis

Chapter One: Could the day get any worse?

On Saturday morning, I woke up from a piercing sound that I felt like it was going to shatter my skull. I lifted my head, just as the noise stopped. Then I looked around the room, but I found no one. As soon as I placed my head back on my pillow, the damn sound began again. I lifted my head just as before, and the same thing happened. Every time I lifted my head, the noise stopped. I decided I better keep my head up before my skull did shatter.

     "What the hell is going on in here?" I asked myself, as my temper rose by the minute. It was never good to wake a person up this early, but to do it with a sound that could raise the dead, was a whole new level of inconsiderate.

Until I glanced at the calendar on my study desk, I didn't realize it was Saturday morning. That was how sound asleep I was. I was having a lovely dream about Marsha, too. The only person I knew who enjoyed starting their weekend by making sounds that could beat a rock band was my father. There wasn't a sound for a few minutes, so I decided to lie back on my pillow, and sure enough, the instant I did, the racket began again.

     This is about as ridiculous as my life could get, I thought.

     "Lord, why did you give me the most annoying dad in the entire world?" I questioned. "What has my small existence done to offend you this much?" I added. "All I ask is a quiet Saturday morning. Even just once." 

I stood up and grabbed my jeans and shirt, heading for the restroom. When I finished my shower, I decided to go downstairs and confront my father. My dad had this hobby to nail, drill, paint, and fix everything he could get his hands on every weekend. At this point, I was surprised that he hadn't repaired everything in the house. As my feet reached the last steps of the stairs, I suddenly stopped on my tracks and wondered why my dad could find things to fix every weekend, but he couldn't find any time for me. Sometimes, I thought my dad was the most obnoxious, annoying, pathetic, stupid, and idiotic guy in the world. I began walking again and realized how my resentment towards him had almost grown into full-blown hatred.

My dad had only one goal in life, and that was to become wealthy. Tinkering with all this junk on the weekend only served to let him unwind from his relentless pursuit of wealth during the workweek. When I looked back on my childhood days, all I remembered was how my dad and mom fought over money. However, it was the same for her as it was for me. It was more a matter of him putting money ahead of everything else in life, including his family. It broke my mother's heart. My mom was a free spirit and her own woman, but she always did what she thought was best for the family.

That was until she did the one thing I couldn't forgive her over, no matter how many years had passed. I remembered standing at the airport with all these strangers staring at me while I cried my eyes. My mother was leaving me. Back then, when I was six, I didn't understand why she was leaving, only that she was. I kept asking her how long she would be gone, but she never gave me an answer. All she said was, "Someday, when you grow up, you will understand. And someday, we will be together again."

That was twelve years ago, and I haven't seen or heard from her since. Not knowing was the hardest part. Did she break her promise to me because she didn't want to keep it or couldn't? If she was dead, then that was why she broke her promise. But if she was alive, that only meant that she abandoned me. Sometimes, the pain that comes from thinking about it seemed unbearable, so I usually didn't. Yet it lingered in the back of my mind, like an evil force, gnawing slowly on my entire being. 

When I entered the room where my father was building probably his millionth birdhouse, like an i***t, I looked at his back and stared daggers into it. I decided I wouldn't confront him after all. It would be too pathetic. It also probably wouldn't lead anywhere. He would have ended up just giving me one of his emotionless stares before returning to whatever he was doing. In the end, I would have just wasted my breath. Not worth it. 

     "What a crappy way to start the day," I mumbled and walked towards the kitchen.

     "No thanks, I already ate," my father replied in that distracted, detached way that only made me want to place real daggers in his indifferent back.

I walked directly to the kitchen counter and toasted some bread with butter. My dad, who was still oblivious to my presence, kept working on his project of the day. I grabbed a bread knife and a jar of jam and headed to the other room, where I could sit at our dining table and enjoy my sandwich. I could smell the paint, so I knew I had a little time to enjoy my meal before the racket started back up.

Sitting in such a long and massive table made to accommodate more than a dozen people put me off in a worse mood. The bread tasted bitter on my tongue, and it was partly because it was toasted too long and partly because of the loneliness threatening to overwhelm me. I glared at the direction of my father once again, swallowing the bitterness in my mouth. It always amazed me that even with such small interactions, my father could bring so much reaction out of me. Not that he would notice or care. 

I looked around the massive dining room and chuckled after thinking how ridiculously expensive everything in it was. But my father liked throwing money around. We were pretty wealthy, so part of my father's ambitions was heavily checked. We lived in a small community, and we had the most beautiful house in the area. Nevertheless, my dad was planning on getting a bigger one. He had an architect friend come by just the other day. If my father was even interested in my opinion—and he wasn't—I'd tell him that the place we live in right now was already bigger than two people need.

Not that he would ever listen. Not a chance.