Father's Dilemma

I felt an instinctive gut-wrench as soon as he started – this was going to end badly. For a few seconds it seemed as though things were going smoothly – then I watched in mute horror as I saw him crash.

Images were flashing by in my mind at light-speed. What had happened between us? Where had those days gone, when he was small and manageable? When I could just look at him and figure out if something was wrong. When coming home didn’t mean avoiding a monster. But then he had grown into a hulking behemoth that I couldn’t begin to fathom. A rebel - he seemed to almost always want to go against instruction. To be fair, it’s not like I wasn’t one of the guilty parties – they say inheritance plays its own role as much as the environment. But had I screwed it up so badly?

The first ripples in the calm started some time back. I had assumed he’d been growing normally and things were fine between us. But he had started hiding information and his behavior had also slowly started changing – growing more abstract and aloof. Warning signs were flashing all over the place but I was in denial and took no notice of them. Then a series of disturbing developments shook my assumption – the link was broken and I had no idea how to repair it.

He had always been kind of strange – you couldn’t categorize him into any one type. One day he’d be playing with bugs and the other he’d cry if you forgot to take him to the library. But however strange his behavior was, I would try to patch things and move on. I guess patches last only so long.

I’m still staring at the wreck in front of me, not knowing what to do. What can one do in this situation? So I just hit F6 and hope my program runs normally this time.