text: It's the same dream as usual, I’m at my father's funeral, everyone is crying except for me. The old man and I didn't always get along, but I figure that's more so a problem for Dr. Nygard. As they begin to bury the casket the screaming starts, the same slurred threats he used to hurl at me when I was a boy. However, the thing that wakes me is the snap of his belt, I always knew what was coming when I heard that belt. I lunge off of the pillow and just like always, nothing. Nothing except the pale white glow of the streetlight illuminating portions of the room. Despite my apparent solitude I can’t help but feel like someone else is with me. I know it's probably nothing, but I always find myself watching the corner, almost as if something has lodged itself there in the dark. I don’t see myself getting back to sleep tonight. The morning after the dream is always a struggle. It feels like being a kid again, trying to make it through a school day after one of dad’s “rough nights' '. Yeah, sure dad, that's what we’ll call them. You spent 3 hours kicking the shit out of me, but you're right, just a rough patch. Time slows to a crawl, my thoughts lingering on my father's screams. “Do I scare you, Hiram?” a question that as a child always brought me to tears, “I’ll give you something to be afraid of, you little bastard!” That's as far as he usually got before he began to kick my teeth in. No chance I’m making it back to sleep tonight. The rain pelting the window and sporadic flashes of lightning cause the shadows to dance across the room, I watch hoping that the movement helps me drift back into sleep, but I know it won’t. “Alright dad” I sighed and rose from the bed. Reaching down to the floor I blindly grab one of the dozens of pants that never made it back to the dresser and make my way to the door, making sure to grab the half-finished bottle of Jamison on my way out. The dark and rain hide the road as I drive but at this hour traffic is sparse so knocking thirty minutes off of the two-hour drive was fairly easy. I pulled the key from the ignition and reached for that half empty bottle, I open the car door, the cool of the night air and the sharp sting of the rain pelted my skin. Approaching the gates of the cemetery I begin to lose my nerve, that deep impenetrable darkness interrupted by only the sudden flashes of lightning closely followed by the rancorous roar of thunder, it was every horror film I had ever seen condensed into one moment. I tilt the bottle back and drink, the warmth of the whisky fills my chest and quickens my breath. Placing my hand on to the cold steel of the gate I slowly push it open, there's no light, nothing to illuminate my path, but still I know the way. Making my way across the gravel walkways I gaze down at the gravestones, the sporadic flashes revealing the names on the crumbling granite tablets, I can’t help but feel that they are watching me, the eyes of the dead glued to my skin as I interrupt their rest. Nearing the end of the path I come to a stop, the lightning flashes and the sky booms as I remove the top from the bottle. “Hey Pop” my voice barely rises above a whisper. I swig from the bottle once more and kneel by the stone. It’s old, the epitaph barely legible as years of neglect have left the stone nearly completely eroded, running my hand across it causes large chunks to shear off and fall away into the wet grass. “Yeah, you don't look too good, but I’ve seen you worse.” I place the whiskey bottle next to the stone subtly gesturing towards it. “You're free to have some if you'd like, I remember how much you loved it back in the day.” The tears are beginning to gather just behind my eyes, I can feel them trying to escape all gathering together in hopes that the dam will finally break. I choke them back; he doesn't get the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Not anymore. “You know I’ve never forgiven you, everyday I’ve thought about all the shit you did to me and mom. I hated you with every ounce of passion I had.” I stared only at a dark silhouette of his gravestone but in front of me, I saw that emaciated drunk, his hair thinning and whisky in hand the sweat pouring from every pore on his body, the thin smile he wore when he would fall into one of his drunken stupors, it was that smile I saw best and it was that smile I hated the most. “Almost 30 years you’ve been gone, and you haunt my every waking moment” I run my hand across his name on the stone and watch as the granite falls away. “No more, you don’t get to torture me anymore, I’m not that helpless kid I was then and you're not the monster I can’t run from” Picking myself up I look down on the stone one last time. “You're just a crumbling stone and a faded name now, you can keep the bottle, consider it a peace offering.