Swallow
A short story by Angelina Koh
This short story mentions alcohol abuse.
My father had been running from sadness since he was twenty-five years old.
Though he never really could run. Most days, he would be hunched over the kitchen table when he thought I was already asleep, drinking one too many beers until his perception of himself was made indistinct. Then he would catch a glimpse of a question leaning against the doorframe. He would call it over, then, and give it a name. Twelve-year-old Oliver... no, Otis... ah, yes, Owen Sutton, in clothes that were at least two sizes too small. He would chuckle in his drunken stupor and tell me that he liked my new haircut, though it had been over a year since he had taken me to get one.
Thanks, I would say. I like yours, too.
And then he would tell me I reminded him of himself. Though I couldn’t put my finger on why I disagreed. Maybe it was the difference between the hazel in my eyes and the—well, his eyes were hooded over so often I couldn’t see their color. Or maybe it was the difference in the way we carried ourselves. He would stumble often, his shoulders heavy, the stench of alcohol clinging to him like a second skin. Nowadays, I would move with purpose, only when I needed to, only when he wanted me to. Most days, he would have gotten worked up at only the noise of my shoes running rampant on the hardwood floor, and sent me to the bottle shop down the road to get some more beer. Bottle-o, he called it.
And so I became the errand boy for his vices, fetching the very thing that kept him running. I navigated through the seemingly never-ending aisles, filled with rows and rows of whatever alcohol you could think of. Gin, rum, brandy, and mead behind reinforced glass doors. Beer in a brown paper bag. I made my way over to the regular checkout line, with everyone preoccupied with purchases of their own. A bookstore clerk, a title on self-help on one hand and an assortment of tequila in the other, their necks barely visible in his grasp. A self-made musician, the skin on her fingertips calloused and coming off in thin layers from all the practice on her electric bass. An elderly woman with pearls strung around her neck so tight I wondered how she wasn’t suffocating yet. She kept whatever she had—the clinks sounded like either sake or soju—concealed in a brown paper bag of her own. She’d become quite fond of me over the past months, I had spent sneaking here, though I assume it was because I resembled her late son in one way or another.
And how was your summer, Ollie? And how’s your father doing, Ollie? It must be so awful, his leg injury. For how long did you say he was going to be bedridden? Asked with forced sympathy. Getting my name wrong always. Whatever response I would offer—a solemn confession of my father’s car accident, a lie that set my face awash with shame—elicited the same knowing nod, the same delivery of platitudes. Trust is key. Patience is key. Sometimes, Ollie, you must let things run their course. This would be followed by the recounting of her visit to her now-defunct residency in remote France, in which her mother had fallen very ill due to overconsumption of vodka. She was a quick-witted, wonderful woman. Though I never quite understood why she felt the need to drink herself silly. I remember her face used to get all red and—oh goodness, why are you crying? Ollie. Ollie! Now don’t run out the door—
There’s a local priest loitering outside the bottle shop entrance. He’d usually try to turn me to the Lord and Savior, to tell me how I could repent my sins today and face redemption tomorrow. To give me something to believe in. Accepting his offer would mean I would never have to worry about being left to grow up on my own. But growing up and seeing your parents’ flaws is like losing your religion. I don’t believe in God anymore. I don’t believe in my father either.
My father had been running from sadness since he was twenty-five years old. He ran so fast, sadness swallowed him whole, just ten years later.
Angelina Koh (she/her) is a high school student based in Malaysia who uses prose to make sense of all that exists.