A Dream Worth Fighting For

Chad was now completely hopeless. He cleared his throat, tracing his fingers along the piece of paper laid in front of him. He only saw profanities on it. Profanities he wished so much to utter but all the wind had been knocked out of him by the presence of his father. He saw hieroglyphs, a new language for his already fractured mind. Then he heard it. The slurs, the shout from the fat, dirty jackal. Its suddenness was like a tire puncture, the sound as well, deflating Chad's spirit as the seconds drifted slowly into the past.

'Well, then! Let's…hic..! Let's hear it, boy!' his father slurred, saliva splashing from both corners of his mouth like an old camel. 'Let's hear it, boy! Let's hear how wise the little soldier is. Her little soldier. Hers, not mine!' He beat his chest as he stared at the two frightened yet cautious eyes beside him as though they were drinking partners of his that he was about to tell a fascinating story to.

The words pierced Chad through-and-through. The sight was even more revolting. He saw his confidence walk towards the exit.

'Sir, can you please be quiet.' The security had arrived.

Chad's father pulled his arm out of reach, wincing and shaking his head like a child who was trying to avoid a bath. 'Ey, it's…hic! It's my turn now! That's my boy up there. She calls him her little soldier but he's still my mistake.'

Chad began to hear. To feel the mockery from the rival team behind him, and his schoolmates too. He could feel them pointing their fingers at him as he just stood there, stupid. The same people who had been waiting to hear one of his famous and acclaimed "Chad Casey Holmes speeches". He clustered his bleeding fingers into fists. He had created his own perfect and beautiful tower of Babel. His father only needed to disrupt it with his presence and his tower came crumbling down to earth and below. Down to Hades.

'Well? Say something, boy! Are you dumb now? Hic! Ey…don't touch me!'

More of the security had come to the rescue. But it was too late. Egos had been murdered and reputations had been marred and mutilated, a student-president post decapitated. The laughter rang louder and louder in his head. Children, adults, peers, families all joined together in a time when the country of Guirnea was going through the worst economic crisis. They pooled their voices together to make a joke of one boy because of his failure of a father. They all came to jeer at one poor soul as they forcefully dragged his father from the premises. Out of his sight, his memories and his life into the outer darkness. His father died that day.

Chad awoke to the choir of crickets and owls outside. Myles was now sound asleep, thank God. He sat up and looked around him within the black. His heart rate eased and the sweat on his brow began to cool down. He laid his back on the bed slowly in relief.

Gerald Casey Holmes. That was the name the world associated him with now, if it still remembered him. Yes, Gerald Casey Holmes died in that seminar. Chad's job was to breathe life into Chad Casey Holmes.