Anyone's Ghost

by August Thompson

We Aldens typically went by our middle names.

Spooky!

He wore a simplified wardrobe of matching denim and sported an Uncle Sam goatee—sure signs that a man has been unsupervised,

*borat voice* my dad

This volcanic tendency of his frightened me. How he could stay dormant for weeks, months. And though it rarely happened, there was always, always, the threat of eruption.

He always got angriest over things that seemed like nothing. “Who do you think is going to clean this? Who do you think pays for this stuff?

I was used to that strange pining then, where I was more interested in the beauty of boys than girls because I wished so badly that I were them.

I went to sleep every night knowing I was one eye-shut away from starting the hang again. I was used to wanting things to be over, to escaping to a future where I could live by myself, be left alone. But now the calendar was a constricting thing, each day gone another coil, another tightening.

I thought of every way I could avoid it, but I wasn’t built to be loveless. “I love you too, Dad.”