Arthur Goravich D3 {FIN}

odair

My name is Arthur Goravich and I am not as young as I used to be. Forty seven years is enough time to realize that I am closer to being in the grave than to being the man I once was. My body groans in displeasure with every step that I take, the halting, shuffle shuffle drag of my steps mirrored by the incessant tapping of my willow wood cane. I’m not that blinkin old but its not for lack of trying. Not that you care but I broke my knee four years ago in a fall. Not a slip from a wet bathroom floor like some kind of invalid, but one that nearly shattered my kneecap into a dozen pieces. I told them that scaffolding wasn’t stable but far be it for anyone to bother listening to the man who designed the damn place. I’ve always tried to take matters into my own hands, and time after time again, my hands continue to fail me, the things I reach for turning around and biting me so hard its a wonder there is any flesh left on my fingers; especially since I’ve worn them down to the knuckles with an unmatched work ethic.

Or at least I used to.

When I stare into the mirror before climbing into bed I see weather worn crags from which dull blue eyes stare blankly at themselves. Everything has seemed devoid of color as the years roll on turning into decades awash with dust and every single shade of gray that the world has to offer. I can’t remember the last time I shaved and I can’t remember the last time that I cared. I know I look scraggly, scratchy. Patchy even like a forgotten childrens toy gathering spiderwebs in the attic, the child that played with it having moved on to better and greater things with no more time for childish things. This house may as very well be that attic, because I don’t think I’ve been useful for a very long time indeed. When I finally crawl under the covers and blow out the candle on my nightstand the scent of the waxy substance soon dissipates to be replaced with a memory, imprints. It’s been twenty years and through an innumerable number of washings, the pillow still smells like her. I don’t know my grip on reality slipped away or if it really does, but it is a fact that does little to comfort me either way.

I’m still taller than my eldest child, or at least I was the last time that I saw them. I know that I am lean, but I’ve grown even slimmer lately from the lack of a diverse diet. I suppose its almost like taking ones meals in the detention center, the way I subsist on bread and water bought with my disability money. Its the only real source of income I have anymore. True, I could ask Klaus for anything and I suppose that he would give it, but what it a man when he can’t provide for himself? Better to let Klaus take care of them and not have to worry about me. I’m sure that one of these days I’ll waste away to nothing and that will be that, nor will any tears be shed. Crying is just another one of the things I’ve forgotten how to do. It’s probably unhealthy to not eat much and then spend most of my days inside this empty house. It wreaks havoc on my waning musculature, but I’ve never really cared about being the strongest of men. I just wanted to be strong enough for my children, but I wasn’t nearly strong enough to raise the six of them on my own. Not without Mel-

My wife.


I know I’m not the same man I was before she passed away in childbirth and I wonder if I’d even want to be. The Arthur of twenty years ago was a quiet kind man who loved his wife very dearly and bounced a son that looked like the spitting image of his grandfather on his knee. I worked hard then, preparing the home for a second child on the way, maybe more if the doctors diagnosis was correct. I should have known something was wrong then, the way M- her stomach was swollen to such great proportions. My fears were confirmed when the doctor informed me that he had been mistaken, and we weren’t having twins, or even triplets. Quadruplets, he had said to me in awe, as if wondering how a medical marvel like this was happening in his district. Meli- She was happy during the pregnancy picking out at least a dozen baby names for both genders and trying to clean the house, even if she was so, so pale and hardly able to move sometimes. Once, I caught her when she blacked out. I could tell that the strain was starting to get to her, but I told myself not to worry. She hadn’t been much better while carrying Hopper to term. I fretted whenever she wasn’t looking. Eventually the day came for all of them to arrive.

They wouldn’t let me into the room, something about stress levels or some other kind of bull that I didn’t have the time or patience to understand. All I know is that it took three orderlies to restrain me when her cries of agony began. It sounded like she was being torn apart. As the minutes ticked by her screams started to mingle with the cries of infants. When they finally let me in to see her, she looked a shell of her former self and the monitor was beeping dimly. The doctor told me that the strain of carrying five children had been too much for her. Five? I thought in bereaved wonder. Five? I held her hand as she died, slipping through my hands like air, the ghost of a smile dancing about her lips. She asked me to make sure they grew up strong, that I would care for them. Her last words. And I only had enough of me in me to fulfill one of those requests. I had to pick their names later that day, watching the five of them mewl and stare at me from the bassinets. I wish i could say I hadn’t glared at them, but I did. It was hard, knowing that they were all I had left of her and yet the reason that they were all I had left of her. Hopper was at my fathers house during this ordeal, and having to explain to a one year old that his mother isn’t coming home...

There are too many things I shouldn’t have had to do.

She picked out the names beforehand, though I’m sorry to say that I couldn’t remember all of them. I named the girls Tacara, Marina and Lyana. I told myself hey should have some sort of common sound tying their names together to make things easier.A treasure, a ocean and an answer, though I’m still trying to figure out why she picked those names. The fourth child I named Klaus, a name meaning victory, however hollow the one I currently had was. I had to come up with a name on the spot for the last bassinet I walked to, having run out of her words the way her face had run out of color. Marion, I finally went with. Jamarion, for Yes. I am bitter. Or I was. That day trickles through my head every few hours whether I want it to or not. I wish I could say I knew more of my children then just their names and faces, but work never left me much time to consort with them. Bring home the money, keep the kitchen stocked, keep their clothes in order.

Sleep. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I think that’s been my only constant in life.

I hardly remember what it was like to be young; from the time I turned sixteen I was working hard to make a name for myself. The thought of being reaped never even crossed my mind. I didn’t have the time to be afraid of that, not when there were things to be built. I worked in a steel mill for some time before finding my true calling with wood. I whittled out my cane, did I mention that? I was an architect for many years, designing and building. Ironic that despite that I was unable to hold myself together after M-

After she died.

Is it wrong that my memories of their childhood largely consists of hours put in at work and looking at the ceiling from my bed?


And then one of my three sons was reaped. If I had been stretched thin before, this was my breaking point. One can only be pulled in so many directions before something snaps. I half expected to see a large red letter f stencil itself onto the front door, for failure became my shadow, my closest companion and my most hated friend. I wanted to keep them safe. I think that’s what any respectable parent wants even though it can be so hard at times. They don’t think I do, but I remember every tear, every skinned elbow and loose tooth. It was easier when they were younger. Before they started to look or act or talk like her. Little things. Playfully tugging at my mind and bringing to light the things I thought I had forced myself to put in darkness. If Klaus hadn’t been reaped I would have continued on a downward spiral of self pity with my nose ground deep into the coffee stained rug. The difference he made was helping me to go down the spiral with my head held high.


A bigger shock was Klaus actually making it home. I hadn’t dared hope. There has been too much disappointment in my life already for that. And though my children were ecstatic that their brother was not coming back in a box, they could not see that I was rapidly being put into one. I tried to provide for them until my body and my mind couldn’t take it anymore and it still wasn’t enough. Klaus was able to find everything that I had worked for in one fell swoop, covered in the blood of his allies and his enemies instead of having his strength sapped away by long hours and sleepless nights. And with it, was more than enough to go around for all my children, more than I could ever have dreamed of. I slid farther away from them when he came back, unsure of how I felt, because I was feeling more than I had in a lifetime. I was...ashamed? It was hard to be faced with not being even half the man I pretended to be. I don’t expect any of them to understand and I wouldn’t want them to. If a man cannot even provide for his family anymore he has no reason to be around them. He becomes obsolete.

Unnecessary.

I think I’ll flip a coin to see whether or not I deserve to be alone.

But I’ll do that tomorrow.