Change Will Reach Us All

Three years after riding off into the sunset with Sharon I find myself alone, alone in a bar that’s playing 80’s power ballads while sipping Jack Daniels on the rocks.

My Daughter Ellis, named after my sister who is now just 8 years old, time just keeps passing on by and I find myself thinking about the events of three years ago, staring into the glass like it’s a bottomless pit and this bar-woman with red hair looks at me, the same way she looks at me every night while cleaning the bar, almost intrigued but I don’t say a word and neither does she.

Drunk I stumble to the car like I do every night, open the door and fall asleep.

During the day I wake up to go for a walk, then straight back into the bar for another drink until one day the lady with the red hair strikes up a conversation.

Not to her surprise I am back once again to drink my fill, I call her my red haired lady but she quickly replies saying quote’ I am no one’s lady’ so by this point I’m having to imply that she must be Asexual just to get a feel of her preference, maybe I can seal the deal. She replies slightly annoyed saying that she’s actually pansexual and calls me a gynophilia. Because that’s modern for you. The fact she has the need to justify herself means I’m in for a chance and she is a beautiful woman, red long hair, tall and slim with a guns and roses tattoo on her left shoulder.

She throws me a few more rounds then asks me a question about what type of woman I would go for. Of course I had respond by saying that it would be the overzealous Mary-Jane Watson type. She laughs with my reply and proceeded to tell me that wasn’t what she expected from me. Just as I went to follow up in deeper conversation my phone rings, it’s Sarah, just my luck, I answer to get immediate abhor from her about how I don’t see Ellis enough. It is ironic because trying with Sarah is like head-butting a concrete wall but fuck me right.

She tells me I can come and see her right now so I take the opportunity however by this time I’ve already had a few so I shouldn’t be driving, I will anyway.

I tell the bar lady good-bye then stumble into my car, then make my way to Sarah’s place, our old place where I spend most of my old days working my ass off to please her and provide for our child while she sat on her ass and looked pretty. All for her to throw it back in my face.

I arrive and knock on that very door to ‘our’ old home and she answers shakenly, her eyes are dilated like she has taken drugs and smells of cigarettes, almost unrecognizable, messy hair and dark bags under the eyes like it was last night’s make-up.

I get invited in and she sits down in her long jumper but she seems to still be shaking while trying to light a cigarette. I make her a coffee and 1 sugar w/ milk like she always has, then I see little Ellis playing in the garden. We catch each other’s eyes and she runs straight into my legs for a cuddle shouting “daddy” with glorious excitement...Forever a daddy‘s girl.

I tell Ellis to go play while I speak with her mother, so I sit down with my coffee and begin to chat.

Sarah as usual has to not only bust my balls but smash them, asking why I’m a bad father, why do I never see her, ask how she is etcetera, etcetera. So I explain that it doesn’t matter because you don’t give me proper answers, you never give me the opportunity to be a good father and you’re selfish. At this point this becomes a 

heated argument, Sarah calls me a fucking asswhole while pointing out my mistakes and my drinking habits, she rages on about how I am just a dreamer, dreaming of a happy family, a rich home living in peace and quiet; waking up to a beautiful woman with Ellis jumping on the bed like the good old days we used to talk about after a brief night of passion.  Instead of coming to terms with what she is saying about me I respond quickly about the countless men she’s been with and fucking when we were married, worried that Ellis might actually be aware with what’s going on.

I explain that Sarah’s living habits are just as toxic and tell her that I am safeguarding our child by taking her away, she stops me in that moment here we are fighting over our dear child and she cries for her mother. I am the big bad wolf.

I decide to leave before the feds pick me up and drive away before things get any worse.

 Still slightly intoxicated and barely driving straight on the road, I manage to pull away outside from my old house where three years ago I caught my wife, sorry ex-wife fucking another man.

At that given time I see a man sneak out the front door behind me but I dare not comment I for one am not perfect because I stink of booze and cigarettes, who am I to judge a divorced woman her right to entertain men once and a while but I do fear for our daughters eyes for she will not understand.

She is bursting with energy, full of life and I feel so terrible that I am so far away, but that’s a lie because I live in my car.

I begin to fall asleep at the wheel, as I close my eyes I see my daughter, She holds my hand and drags me towards the garden, Sarah is chain-smoking and does not catch my stare, and then I begin to watch Ellis play in the sand; building sandcastles and Lego.

It is strange, it feels familiar like I am living in the past as I see her play I think about all the other times we spent together not only as father and daughter but as a family.

As it begins to get late and dinner begins to cook, sarah approaches me and asks me to leave, I say my goodbyes and then walk to the car, just as I turn around to see little Ellis one more time sarah shuts the door. I turn around get in and drive back to where I belong, Hell, then everything turns to black.

I wake up the next morning crashed into a farm fence with noisy sheep all around me, I open the car door barely able to walk and a blinding headache I proceed to re-trace my steps and call a cab, and turns out I was expected, without asking I was taken straight to hells bar. I walk inside and there she is, my Mary-Jane Watson, telling me that because I didn’t turn up in the morning she sent her chauffer out to find me, funny because I swear I called a cab.