I love my son, but...

fiction | short story | agoraphobia | father-son relationships | family | 562 words

I love my son, but when he visits, my skin begins to itch.

The moment he opens my front door, my body ignites.

Engulfed in flames.

No, I am not a vampire–at least, I don’t think I am.

Sunlight does not singe my flesh, and I don’t have a lust for blood or a set of pointy fangs.

I haven’t left this house in five years, not since a global pandemic granted me full permission to wall myself off from the world’s dangers and maladies.

My son calls me a curmudgeon.

I don’t really associate with the nomenclature, but I get it.

I enjoy company…okay…that might be an overstretch, but I enjoy one-on-one, or even two-on-one, from the comfort of my own home, of course.

My bones ache. My joints are rigid from lack of Vitamin D, or whatever it is the sun gives you. Unsure.

My skin has paled.

My hair, thinner, more brittle.

Luckily, I have managed to procure some workout equipment over the years, to keep me in some semblance of “shape.”

A set of rusty dumbbells, a workout bench, and a treadmill.

I’m not horrendously old, either.

A mere sixty-six.

Just barely “retirement” age.

I love my son, but without his gracious, kind heart, I’d probably never have company, or groceries for that matter.

Every week he comes by and brings me the essentials.

I’m not a bad cook; my late wife taught me all my favorites before she passed.

I’m grateful for her lessons each day.

Otherwise, I’d need to order delivery or takeout–more strangers, with disease or who knows what.

I’d have to get in my car, and that’s not a great idea either.

And who knows what kind of judgement I’d face if someone caught me, Mr. Ortiz of Blanche Drive, out in the wild.

“The recluse at the end of the cul-de-sac.”

That’s all I am to this world.

I’m sure by now I’m relegated as a staple of neighborhood lore, a phantom, a fanfare of sorts.

At least, I presume.

Sue me, I’m presumptuous.

I love my son, but after all these years, I think he’s resigned himself to the fact that I’m probably never going to leave this home, unless it’s in a casket.

All I had to see on the news was “respiratory virus” and “spread person to person,” and I holed up immediately.

So many years I spent uncomfortable.

Drowning in a sea of people.

Suffocating at the nearest grocery store.

Asphyxiating at work.

Far too many places with far too many people.

I could barely take another moment as it was.

When my wife died, it became even more.

Unbearable.

I went from everyday panic to crippling over concern, terrified of the world and its many pitfalls.

The pandemic just made me give up entirely.

My doctor diagnosed me with agoraphobia.

The evil voice chanting in my head, given a name.

I love my son, but just about every time he enters my home I am riddled with fright.

He is all I have.

There aren’t enough television shows, books to read, or hobbies to get me through the day.

It’s this one day a week, when I see my boy, now a man.

A resilient man.

A son I don’t deserve.

A kindness that radiates selflessness, he gets that from his mother.

I love my son.

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Authors Notes:

I had this idea of an agoraphobic father who really only has one person in his life, and what a snippet of that life might look like. I feel like a lot of us can relate to the reclusive and isolating nature of the early days of the pandemic, forced or not.

This man clearly loves his son, misses his wife, and just can’t deal anymore.

He survives…but that seems to be the only thing he is doing.

I was listening to Lindsay Lohan’s "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)” on repeat when writing this. My brother and I will casually send this song to each other as a reminder of our preteen/early teen angst toward our father who used to work graveyard shifts at the airport. A ghost at times to us.

I thought it would be interesting to write something from the POV of a father, a troubled father, but a father nonetheless…and it was just father’s day you know…