They say the house cannot last, Papa . . . that you are dying and I am being born. We do not have much time. But it only takes a moment to brandish an ego, to let fly a proclamation, to conceive a dream.

When I came home I was forty; Papa was eighty. I sat on the staircase of an empty room, surveying the warped linoleum for memories of earliest life, sitting and dreaming, because the sun came through the window and told me to do this. It was a July sun, late afternoon, and there was childhood in the voice: the innocent places to which I was returning. They were as real as root beer floats and Pete Rose headfirst slides and Ralph Kramden sending Alice to the moon. July was my birth month, my dream-centre, the time when I relaxed and slipped backward a little more. I’d gotten old living in Pittsburgh. Too many hardhats and work whistles and foremen like Johnny Cash’s Oney.

Papa had lived underground when I was a child, would again someday soon. Papa was at the end of dreaming, walking the coal mines all the time now in his head. He had black-panelled the walls and made meagre the daylight.

That was his side. My side would be different.

The house had split in two down the centre twice as much as Papa needed. I asked for the extra space and was granted it. I had always lived inside of him anyway.

So here is Papa gone back to work: furious hammering at all hours, elusive calculations scribbled upon two-by-fours, shifting measurements refusing to fit just right. He built the house drinking beer when he was forty; I rebuild it sober, with his help. A duet of hammers; sweat dripping in synchronous motion from similar features. Papa is older, I am younger, with every stroke.

We must conquer the world, perhaps, to ever relax in it. My kingdom is a house of matchsticks with three blades of grass surrounding it. But it is mine.

So, Papa, can we finish in time for your funeral, my conception?

Discord fuels us in wintertime. Papa tries too hard to mimic swings taken with a younger arm. I am a teenager now and spit my venom. Nothing he does is good enough. Darkness arrives on the charcoal mufflers of school buses, children rushing indoors to avoid the night.

With each warped plank torn loose a solid floorboard takes its place. The space demands new sculptures to fill it. I honour Papa with all my designs, thinking more now of wooden blocks and fortresses tall. I am too young anymore for practical concerns. The world holds me not; to the life within I pledge allegiance—the pop lyrics of the radio love songs a good enough bible; romance pure, bereft of disingenuousness. I kiss the hand of every girl. I dare to imagine adventure in my days, a constant companion.

We are painting the walls in colourful, but subdued shades—light upon life placed. The rugs lie down in glorious thickness; the drapes sway with sheer beauty. Without strategy I spread my toys everywhere: race car tracks and dolls with capes. All my life is a long summer afternoon, sugary cereal for every meal, cartoons a sublime entertainment.

The world is growing larger around me; Papa is shrinking in on himself. He speaks of the will to live, caresses and abides this new partner, as if willpower had played no part until now, had not sustained him every moment, just now discovering that he is a breathing creature, as the last nails go in. He retreats then from the glare, the cacophony, moving ever closer to his quiet place.

The house cannot last, bereft of occupants. Papa sets his rocker on the back porch, centre-aligned, one foot to either side. He cradles me in the orange light; and as the sun sets we are the both of us undone, unravelling in separate directions from the same spool of time.







Author Details Mark Joseph Kevlock Contributor Mark Joseph Kevlock (used to spell it: Kiewlak) has been a published author for more than two decades. His work has appeared numerous times in The Bitter Oleander, Wild Violet, Bewildering Stories, Freedom Fiction, and Cezanne’s Carrot. He has also written for DC Comics.