The sky filled swiftly with an ashy grey leaving the white comforter and white walls around me dulled. Little bits of the blue backdrop seeped through, confident that the arrival of the grey couldn’t shake it. Unsymmetric lines of the radical grey got heavier and darker. so heavy and dark that it had no choice but to explode in response to the blue’s taunting. even the kindest of touches couldn’t stop it from erupting with pain, anger, and tears. I shifted my eyes back at my now yellow and grey tinted opus, losing myself to the black ink that swallowed the pages whole. The first novel He ever gave me.

“You can do anything you put your mind to”

His eyes lit up like an over enthusiastic clown, feeling as if he’d said the most significant thing that could ever be said. It was a rare occurrence to see that kind of light in His eyes so i took a moment to stare.

Word after word i was lost in Guy Montag’s world only to be shoved roughly out by the pain, anger and sadness of the heavy and dark grey releasing in anguish. Thick angry spheres of water plunged into the side of the house like an assembly line making its final attempt at success. They hit hard with the promise of destruction.

“Life becomes one big pratfall, Montag; everything bang, boff and wow!”

Captain Beatty’s words echoed through my mind in a smooth voice that contradicted his cold aura. An emptiness filled my chest to the brim, Beatty’s heartless but desperate character reminded me of someone. But which someone?

I placed a marker into the book, careful not to hurt the calloused spine and weak pages. The house continued to fight back with its hard tired exterior. An exterior that had been withered from years of assembly line attacks on the outside, and shrill shrieks and accusations from the inside. The battle didn’t last long, the heavy grey surrendered, abruptly moving eastward to challenge the seas and the land that lay opposite.

The blue quickly and effortlessly recaptured the sky and thanked the hard exterior for its alliance, rewarding it with soft but sharp beams of yellow, and white light. The blue remained blind from what the structure had to suffer in order to stay standing every day, so it made no effort to protect it from the hell that rained down so often. And suddenly I knew exactly who Beatty and tired house and rigid storm reminded me of. Him.

The house relaxed back into the ground only temporarily, until He re entered the way he does everyday at 5:30pm. His footsteps were heavy but not from His weight but rather the weight He carried. He carried the weight of the accusations and failures because that’s what fathers do. They carry. They carry, and carry until their delicate mansion house become just a house. and not a home.