A Shared Secret

A Shared Secret

After he lost his job at the law firm and quietly tumbled into a dark depression, John moved away. He lived in the wildernesses and the mountains, and his sons lived with him; his wife was dead, childbirth had been too much of a strain for her feeble body. Depression consumed the dark recesses of his soul, enveloping him in anger and loathing of his needy sons. Despite their innocence, John put his sons at fault in the passing of his treasured wife. The boys, Thomas and Daniel, gazed at their father, yearning for his attention, their 4 year old minds, unable to comprehend his sudden abhorrence and their mother’s prolonged and unexplained disappearance.

When they turned 16, the twins barely spoke, their father forever tangled in a web of misery being progressively thickened as the days and years wore on. He would not acknowledge their presence, nor would he nurture them or show them any form of affection. It was a difficult time, and the twins began loathing their father in return for his years of antipathy towards them. Finally they began expunging the feelings of sorrow that had lingered in their hearts, replacing them with hatred and desire for revenge.

One day, Thomas and Daniel sat silently near a creek that meandered in the vicinity of their dilapidated shack. Having been virtually raised as animals in the wilderness, the boys exchanged in a brief and primeval conversation, their desire to be rid of their father who in their eyes represented nothing but malevolence.

They set out on a hike towards the unknown, silently observing the uncharacteristic stillness of the trees on such a murky, eerie night. Slowly, they assembled the necessary tools for their grim task. As they approached their home, they found their father lying on the ground, resting in repose from the demons that plagued him on the outside but still overwhelmed by the inner fiends that forever penetrated even his most quiet slumbers. His lanky body was curled into a tight ball and his ribs were plainly protruding underneath the worn material of his shirt.

The two contumacious boys advanced eagerly, their lined, rugged hands, tightly grasping the ad-hoc arrows made of wood they had constructed earlier that evening. With one sharp blow, their father’s miserable life was unceremoniously terminated.

As soon as their bloody act was completed, the boys knew not what to do with themselves. They rapidly salvaged all they could from the measly provisions they had and left. Escaping their childhood home, a hideous place to grow up, escaping their fears, their terrors, escaping the father that had never really been a father.

It was difficult for the boys to incorporate themselves into the city life and they adjusted poorly. But gradually, they became accustomed to the unfamiliar ways of urban settings. They rented a small, rundown apartment in the slums of the city and began dealing drugs as a way to make a living. Though their drug dealing business was strong, their money supply was dwindling and they resorted to the most extreme means in which to become wealthy and restore the life they once had, long ago, before their mother, their Guardian Angel had gone.
Alas, their antics only succeeded in immerging them into perilous encounters with the law and they began traveling all over the country, escaping what they feared would soon catch up to them; fate.

Troubled by their youth, Thomas and Daniel were unable to forget what had been their past. It remained on them, an odour lingering in the air, on their skin, in their clothing. They could not be rid of the troublesome memories and felt regret for having destroyed their only link to family and a life that had once been desirable. As the years passed, their inability to fit in with normal society was flagrant and they were miserable with the life they had acquired. They had nothing but each other and desperately relied on one another for support. They were so indisputably alike, they began experiencing the same nightmares every single night, as their father once had years before, and they sunk into the tumult of depression.
On a solitary winter evening, the boys looked at each other; each seeing in the other’s eyes pain, longing and regret. But they also saw wisdom, a wisdom they had acquired from a perpetual existence of misery and pain, wisdom they had unknowingly collected as the years wore on. They finally understood what this wisdom meant. They began to gradually let go of their past, forgiving their father for his indifference, forgetting their scarring memories, seeing only the future and what it might hold in store. Their run-ins with the law became less frequent and the drug-dealing less profuse. As quietly as they had cold-bloodedly murdered their father many years earlier, they became people. People who might laugh when a joke was casually uttered; people who cried when they watched sappy movies; and people who loved. They made friends whom they loved and they married women and had children they adored. But mostly, they loved one another and their bond remained so taut and carefully weaved that they shared the same dreams at night and grew old together and shared the same newfound interest in life. When the time came, they died only two days apart from each other and were buried side by side for eternity.



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