Post by Makes-No-Sense on Oct 19, 2010 5:27:07 GMT -8
"Caleb, your father will be home shortly. Clean up your toys and then go put on a nice clean shirt for dad, mmmk?" The matronly voice banished away the small chimerical effects the young Caleb had conjured in his thoughts.
The tasks were done, afterall it was father! The man told god to keep his family safe, to keep his world together, to keep everything the way it should be. Caleb knew this to be true.
The eight year old would race through the living room, leaping higher and higher as he imagined his wings taking him above and beyond all things. The items scattered about were gathered and hid among the many corners and nooks that he could find. Under the bed, behind the sofa, in the good china cupboard. The race to his room was with the intention to finish the final task, but the tradition his father kept would dictate otherwise as Caleb reversed directions to follow his only true intention.
Sprinting around any obstacle, and leaping over others, Caleb would throw his arms up and out as he reached the doorway holding his fathers frame. The smile said it all as the man laughed and caught the leaping Caleb. Spinning about they would agree in that moment without words that they had spent too much time apart. "Hooooheheeeeyy! You have got to stop feeding him the miracle grow hon. I'll miss every inch if you don't!"
The laughter and reunion echoed and continued as the authority figure joined them. Caleb would be sent to his room to grab that shirt, only to come back around the corner to sneak a peek of the parents and their welcome home party. Curious about what all this quiet talking was between them and why he held mother so close when he spoke to her and made her stop speaking with his lips. The questions were endless, even as dinner was mostly over. "Alright Caleb, you've been holding them in, go ahead." The man finished of his last bit of food before Caleb launched into a tirade of questions, each one answered with the returned vigor that they were aimed at him with.
Where had he been? What was he doing this time? Why did they have to say no? Couldn't they just like his new thing this time? The details never really mattered, only that Caleb was asking his father like his fathered ask god. The story was never the same one twice, and the answers always were given with the fascination of new adventures filling his young mind. "Now help your mother clear the rest of these dishes and we'll all have desert in front of the TV." Caleb agreed without hesitation.
The simple icecream mashing race to create their own chocolate flavoring was done with the ussual tradition. Caleb now in his pajamas sitting between both parents on the couch as the evening news flashed across the screen. Each had one arm out-stretched over the top of the couch gripping the other. Worry would slowly grow over their faces as Caleb knew nothing more then the joyful gathering they shared.
The ice cream finished, the television dimmed and died out as the signal to finish the home-coming ritual happened. Father and "son" both moved to the hardwood door frame of Caleb's room. Standing as tall as he could, without lifting his heels off the ground, he waited for the pen to mark his new location. Turning to see the progress they pair of them both agreed he was taller, and that it was time for bed. Though the second half of that agreement came reluctantly.
What made this different then any other month his father came home from the week in the firehouse was the question that would change Caleb's life. "Daaaaaad, do you have to go again next month?" The response was always yes, but it was the following response that worried that dad.
"...Ok..."
The man moved to turn the nightlight a little higher up on the setting as he moved to lay down on the bed next to his son. "Something on your mind son?" The tone of Caleb was easy to decipher. He knew the next question was the one he was dreading to tell the truth about.
At first Caleb would deny it, but the tickle torture was unbearable, and so was the frame of the mother as she told the two to keep it down and for the father to hurry it up. He would dismiss her kindly enough saying he'd be a moment, turning his attention back to Caleb, waiting now with the question curiously on the tip of his tongue. "Why do you have to do it?"
The dread was apparent in his eyes as he answered as best he could. "Sometimes people get hurt so badly that their mothers can't fix them. Thats when they need me Caleb. Your pops here knows how to help them when others can't, and I gotta be ready to go and do this at a moments notice with all the others at the firehouse."
"Like the guardian angels?" Pointing to the calender on the wall with the various angels on it and snippets about them for each month of the year.
"Well...yes Caleb, in a way. I'm not there to guard them like the angels. I'm suppose to take care of them when the angels do their best, but the people still get hurt." Trying to explain this to himself as much as to his young "son".
"Do you ever see the angels dad?"
"Well if you would listen to your mother, I'd say everytime I see you. Sometimes I see them son. Only one though."
The father was now guiding the story as always, leading his son to the next question he already had an answer for. "Which one dad?"
"The only one that can help them when I can't, Uriel."
The questions would continue, but the father put an end to them with the traditional "that's a story for another evening."
The lights were dimmed and the world fell away as Caleb drifted into sleep thinking of his father and the angels working together. Just like god.
September 11th 1996, New York suburb of Queens.