I took back my inward grimaces and servant’s knees, forgave myself for succumbing to the inevitable incarcerations of being reared. I dutifully packed the father’s sins along for the flight. Frankly surprised to even have flown at all, given the weight of all that beer bottle guilt and latter day halo residue.

Should my parental archetype be adorned as humanly familiar, it would resemble something of a drunken saint, a bipolar nun perhaps, one with a penchant for delivering Sunday lectures through a hangover haze. Spoken with a vocabulary narrow as the mind responsible for its decrepit moral platitudes, such a lecture wielded the power to dim even the brightest of minds, particularly the delicate ones.

But not too delicate, this mind would prove in due time, no, quite stubborn in fact. Gently stubborn, you might say; a survivor to be sure. Always protecting a spark, keeping a little rock in the shoe, a reminder to stay at least a little bit awake. Oh, the lies this young mind believed!