Dad.txt

Jacob slammed his door loudly. He couldn’t believe the nerve of his father. Moments earlier, Jacob had gone into the kitchen of his parents’ house where he lived. All he wanted to do was eat, watch television, and surf the internet on his laptop.

His father, however, would have none of that. His son was in his mid twenties, jobless, and still living at home. He demanded that Jacob clean the living room, as was his regular duties, and asked him in a rather gruff tone if he had gotten a job yet—a question to which he already knew the answer was no.

Jacob, tired of hearing the same thing from his father daily, stormed out of the kitchen, leaving behind an open refrigerator and his laptop. As he left, he yelled obscenities at his father, and said he wished that he would just die already so he could go be with his mother in hell.

Jacob’s mother, Molly, had died earlier in the year when the car his father was driving hit a patch of ice and skidded into a ravine. Jacob constantly berated his father, whom he hated for—as he put it—killing his mother. There never was a solid father/son bond between him and his father to begin with, and his mother’s death destroyed what little there was.

Jacob, still fuming and tired from staying up all night playing his online games, went to sleep. When he woke up, he found the house curiously silent. His father usually was noisy at all hours; if it wasn’t his snoring, it was the sounds of him watching television.

Jacob ventured out of his room and called out to see if anyone was there. He poked around all the rooms until he got to the kitchen, where he saw his laptop closed, but still on.

Angry at the thought of his father messing with his computer, he snatched it up and turned on the television. Opening it, he booted it back up and went about seeing if his father had messed with anything.

There, on his desktop, was a curious file titled “dad.txt” that he was sure wasn’t there earlier. Curiosity getting the better of him, he opened it. In moments, he was filled with a deep sense of regret.

The document, which started off with things such as ‘I’m sorry;’ ‘I love you;’ and ‘Goodbye;’ was his father’s suicide note. It described how his wife’s death strained him, and how Jacob’s constant remarks about him and the accident were just too much for him to bear any more.