Custody [short story]

It was as if he'd seen his children sliding off a cliff slowly, but surely. Hanging on to a bush here, a crack there, but all into a continuous descent towards the abyss of estrangement. All the while the kids looking at him, their puppy eyes begging him to make it all stop (him being their dad and all). 

But the years had passed and he couldn't make it all stop. He tried to hang on to that summer they’d spent in Cornwall, playing hide-and-go-seek in his mother's yard or racing along the beach, stampeding on sand castles left to dry in the sun by other kids. But it all seemed to happen in another life, to another person. Instead, his kids were now long past the edge of the cliff, in the mid-air of forgetfulness, falling towards an inert and ragged future, without him in it. His head was now a boiling pot of sadness, overflowing with tears with the incredible speed of loneliness. 

But no! He won’t stand for this. It was not irreversible as long as he is still has breath left in him. And he decided to jump off after them, wearing hope as a parachute.

Read my other short stories: Onore  | To the Stone Bull Bluff | The Shifting Path | The Spy | Picnic on the White Cliff 

image credits:  Altanaka/ Shutterstock.com