The Absent Father

 Henry’s father was long gone before he died. It felt like it to Henry, anyway. He was there, but he wasn’t there for him. Not when Henry was learning to tie his shoes at 7. Not when he had to learn how to shave at 16. He wasn’t there for Henry when a much older woman took his virginity at 19, and when he had his heart broken and didn’t feel like living anymore at 27. He was just a face in the crowd at Henry’s wedding at 29, not once offering his opinion on Henry’s fiancee before she became his wife, and never after. He was never one of the main characters in Henry’s story, and with each passing year he faded more into the background.

His voice has gotten small and quiet. Not that it mattered much, as the man stopped talking almost entirely. Weeks would sometimes pass without him uttering a single word, not even when asked. The now old man would mostly just sit in his armchair, staring absent-mindedly and drift off into sleep.

It wasn’t really Henry’s internal need or desire to try and connect with his near-absent father. It was more of a social pressure-induced reflex. Get to know your elders before it’s too late. So he tried. “It’s not dementia, and it’s not Alzheimer’s” - the doctor said. “Your father is lucid, just really withdrawn”. Best attempts to talk with the man would send him back to his childhood days, and produce a recollection of a dog he had as a kid, a spelling bee he’d won, or that one time he found a baby owl in the attic.

 Just a few anecdotes, repeated for a millionth time, like a pre-recorded message on an answering machine in a long-abandoned house. They all ended the same way, too. With Henry’s father closing his already half-shut eyes and dozing off into sleep. Nevertheless, Henry kept trying. It’s become more of an unconscious habit than an actual attempt at communicating, like talking to your dog.

“How are you, dad?” - Henry couldn’t have known this would be their last conversation.  “Want to tell me about when you were a boy, again?” His father's eyes remained closed, and for a brief moment Henry thought he was fast asleep. He was about to leave, as the old man suddenly spoke. “She never really wanted me” - his voice was quiet as always, but somehow even more distant. “I only saw her in my dreams once, when I was still just a boy. Then all I ever dreamt about was chasing her, missing her by a split second, never reaching her. Decades of longing. I’m an old man now, why didn’t she come back sooner?”

This was new. This wasn’t like any other previous monologue.

“For all my life she’d elude me, no matter how much time I’d spend dreaming. I thought she’s been beckoning me. I thought she’d marked me, all these years ago. That I was destined for great things, the moment I’d found her again.” His voice was changing. Gaining not just volume, but substance. Henry’s heart was racing. He remembered this voice, from back when he was little. It was his father’s actual voice. 

Then the old man opened his eyes, and Henry felt the world tilting around him. They were all black. A cosmic void trapped underneath the eyelids of a wrinkled face, that didn’t just seem old anymore, but ancient. “There are great things ahead, yes. Great work to be done, but not by my hand. No, son. She wants you. All she ever wanted was you. All she needed me for, was to create you, leave you incomplete, and bridge our world and her’s, so she could reach you. My life was just a means to an end. She’s chosen you, made you, she needs you.”

“Dad, you’re not being yourself!” - Henry’s words sounded more like a plea, than a statement. Father’s hand shot forward, touching Henry on his chest. Interstellar cold poured into his heart.

“That’s OK, son. You’re not yourself either. Not anymore” - with that, he closed his eyes, and collapsed in his chair.

There was always an empty space in Henry’s heart, in the shape of his father. This tiny void was now growing. Spreading.

Next time Henry slept, he had his first dream of the Hollow Priestess.