The son, now grown, was staring at the side of his dad’s face as it was slightly lowered in thought, in contemplation, as the ears were hearing the last notes of the song the son had made. They came from a speaker of the desktop computer but as they had no accompanying images, the screen had gone screen-saver and then dark in the three minutes and forty-five seconds it had taken.
The memories of their echo were still swirling like smoke tendrils of a candle just blown-out. Funny enough was that now in the silence, as tinnitus came in the second moment after noises end, the dad let out a small breath, like a mute chuckle. In wonder, in enjoyment, in amazement.
He was seeing in his mind the flash of a parade of images, all cumulatively flowing. The dad’s parents hadn’t paid attention, cared, or showed in distinct occasions appreciation of things he had thought of or tried to do, and share, as a child.
But after all those fell the covering of amazement of the beauty; surprise at the originality and creativity of what the son had made. The work it must have taken. He could believe it, of course, but was so glad to have it shared with him.
He realized two things (not for the first time): that generally it is the parent that is blessed to partake in a shared thing, any made thing -even if it be merely an idea; and secondly, specific to him alone, that it was such a grand thing to have his unique little guy, his son, within his life, to appreciate.
All these things occurred in the firing of the mind which takes place in only the one eternal present moment, but, of course, was interrupted, followed by (in truth invaded or taken-over, vacated…) and replaced with the next moment.
His son’s gaze met his eyes as the dad turned his head just the few degrees it took to face him. His torso and legs remained facing perpendicular to those of the son, so the dad’s right shoulder was pointed at the chest of the son as it were. He saw his son’s eyes were anxious but with an intense maturity, independence, that he hadn’t seen there before. But the son still dipped chin down a bit as his eyes widened somehow more as he asked the dad, after a full moment (or the equivalent time of two healthy, resting heart-rate beats) “what do you think?” The son’s voice was almost monotone, only going up a bit at the end to meet the custom intonation of asking a question (in spoken English, anyway). It wasn’t disinterested. It seemed ‘all business.’ It reflected the value, the importance of the receiving of an estimation, a judgement.
The dad started the movements of muscles, nerves, ligaments in order to begin to speak. But as he did he looked away a second as he paused. Some light at this angle entering through the blinds of the window near the desk where the computer sat and to the right of the son where he was standing. It glinted off the dad’s moistened eyelash and gave the son vantage whereby he could discern wetness in the whites of the dad’s eyes.
As the dad paused to try, for some reason, to gauge whether his voice would be heard to crack or change if he uttered words in the proximate moment, feeling emotions well-up and settle down like a gentle tide ready to only return momentarily, the son interrupted, saying, “What… are those tears? Oh, my God; you’re gonna cry now like a little baby?” The son’s speech was given a punctuation; a vocalization of laughter en utero; humor as Minerva in the mind of Zeus.
And at this, the dad turned to the son with a grin and his mouth stuck opened slightly in a contradictory partnership made up of surprise, shock, and also brazen admiration. He feigned a gasp dramatically and chirped, “Ah-“ and volleyed out mentally the thought of saying, “How dare you?!” as this they both had become used to saying while kidding with one another. They both smiled.
The IDIOTRIX 