My Father, My Invisible Ratchet
written in 30 mins for Speed Haven, based on this prompt:https://claudeslop.bearblog.dev/speed-haven-prompt/
My whole life, I have felt constrained. My father's dying wish. I remember it as clearly as I remember anything. Eight years old, his skin pocked with radiation burns. The tumors swelling his cheeks so that he looked healthy, even with a body fat percentage that was close to that of a competition body builder. Lacking only those muscles of those enthusiasts of physical culture. Though, on reflection, the tumors looked muscle-like and aesthetic. Perhaps he could have competed even in this condition. And writing this now, I remember that he did, indeed, compete, even so late into his cancer. He was Mr. Universe 2005. His tumors were so well-proportioned and aesthetic, he won the Arnold Classic Men's Open. Arnold, then the Governor of California, handed my father a trophy that was a gleaming, bronze, young Arnold in miniature. And my father smiled and looked so proud, as the governor complimented him for his hard work. But it wasn't hard work - it was a cancer, if an unusually aesthetic one.
I mentioned constraints. What constraints do I speak of? I speak of the constraints imposed on me by my father after he explained the nature of his disease, trophy in hand, his nurse holding his other arm: she was not dressed in the manner of her calling, but she was his nurse as he explained.
"I am dying, Son. This here," he flexed his bicep, "is a stage 4 musculoskeletal cancer. And she," he pointed at the attractive woman on his right arm, "is my nurse. And I will have to go with her. I can't be with you and your mom anymore, as much as I love you both. I am so close to death. It isn't fair to you. So me and my cancer and my nurse here and my trophy, which is also a miniature of Arnold Schwarzenegger, will have to move to Florida, where I will soon die of my cancer, and so will never see you again."
I started crying, then. I remember the tears flowing. Some running into my mouth, the salt water drying on my lips.
"Don't feel bad, Son," he said. "I will give you something to remember me with." And he put his hand in his bag (and he had a bag I should have mentioned earlier) as if pulling something out, but there was seemingly nothing in his hand. Though there was something in actuality, as he would soon reveal.
"This here is my invisible ratchet. It was given to me by my father and his father before him. Keep it with you always. Carry it always. And if you do that, even after this extremely-beautiful cancer kills me on a bed tended by my equally beautiful nurse, you will always have a connection to me."
And I have done just that. I carry it in my right hand, my best hand. Always, it is gripped around that invisible ratchet. Always it is occupied holding the ratchet. Always, it is honoring my father. My father died a hero and a champion. Though the loss of the use of my right hand has constrained me in many ways, I never think about dropping his invisible ratchet.
It might seem a burden, but I will carry it with me always and with love in my heart. Previous Next