BACKSPACES A story by Nicole Dirks
H
e was a good man.
It happened first early on Father’s Day. Around midnight, after everyone had gone to sleep, I filed through his study in search of inspiration for a homemade gift––a book he might have half-read, a 90’s-sound-in-contemporary-packaging band he had discovered, anything that could offer a clue about a recent interest he had developed while I had been at college. I found the condoms first, then the drawings of her naked edges. The timing was outstanding. He was a good man when he was my father. It happened rather quickly the second time. Or, quite slowly, when you consider the broader timeline. At 1:09 a.m. on January 10th, we arrived at the hospital. By 1:24 a.m., his colleague in a yellow sheet and face shield told us he had died. I’m not sure whether it was the first or second time that the loss of my father felt more real. It all seemed overwhelmingly arbitrary. He was my father. Standing in the mirror this morning, I wished that I could duplicate myself. If I could exit my body, maybe I could scrutinize myself from more
viewpoints than a mirror’s reflective plane. One of me could stay seated in this folded chair, squarely centred in my empty new apartment. The other me could circle my body, finally concoct some sort of judgment. Maybe then I would know what I looked like––the true sharpness of my stare, the shape of my thighs. More importantly, I could watch myself navigate today, and figure out what I feel, besides very little. Maybe I’d know what to write––we had waited two years to hold an in-person service, and I hardly felt any different from when he passed. My hands smelled like my pencil’s soft wood. Whenever I brought my hands to my face, their odor prodded me for my lack of progress. The paper was still vacant. He devoted himself to his children and to his patients. Bullshit. The words felt neither honest nor like what the audience wanted to hear. I shoved the sheet of paper into my pocket. Sophie was waiting downstairs, so I left and folded into her Honda hatchback that always smelled like minty dirt. Her gaze lingered on me as I stared at the morning traffic, deciding from my composure whether our destination should be a topic of discussion.
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