Chapter 27

I float just above the ground, never to touch the soil of L'Manburg or the wooden path that could never lead me home again. Because my home now is no physical place, it's with my son. I hide behind a stack of barrels on the pier and secretly watch my son and his grandfather fish. The huge smile on Fundy's face when he catches a fish for the first time is contagious.

They're sitting on two chairs with fishing rods in their hands, even from here I can see the concentration on Fundy's face. I hug myself when Phil puts a loving arm around Fundy, knowing that human touch was not something I would experience again.

"Good job, my boy!" Phil beams, but Fundy looks down at the fish he has in his hands and frowns. I lean past the barrels and peer at what had made him so sad. In his hands is a salmon, my favourite type of fish. Even dead he still thinks of me, it warms my heart.

Phil looks around and we make eye-contact. His brows knit together under the green and white stiped hat to create a look of disappointment, pity, and happiness all on his weathered, lined face.

I had come here to fish, one of my recreational activities. It's calming but somewhat lonely. I start to float to the two men. Although Fundy wasn't technically a man yet, not in my mind anyway. I grip my fishing rod, I had been avoiding contact with anyone for a while, scared of how I might have affected them when I was alive; I have been told many times that I was not a great person.

Phil smiles and I wonder if he felt the same way seeing me as I did when I saw Fundy. Fundy notices his grandfathers' line of sight and follows it. The disappointment and pain that appears on his face when he looks up at me, at his own father, breaks my heart. But I smile, more for myself than for him.

"Hi Fundy!" I greet my son brightly. "How are you?"

There's no answer, he just holds my gaze, unwaveringly. He then gets up abruptly and goes around me, knowing full well he could have just walked straight through me.

"Fundy –" Phil starts, looking worried. He throws me an apologetic look and follows my only son.

"No, it's ok, he's young and just throwing a little tantrum," I tease, floating slowly behind the others. "How old are you now, Fundy? 17 maybe?"

Fundy stops in his tracks, at the end of the pier. The sun rise behind us goes straight through me and illuminates his back; he's breathing heavily.

Then in a flash Fundy spins around on his heel to face me, face a portrait of fury, and hurt.

"I'M 21, DAD!" The scream rips out of Fundy's throat, like it had been supressed for many years, "YOU LEFT ME WHEN I WAS 16! I WAS JUST A KID." He looks me dead in the eyes, not flinching. He looks upset but triumphant, I wonder how long he waited to say that.

"I -" I start but then my figure begins the flash and I feel weak, I need to top off on the potion that keeps me tethered to this world. I float over to my new house, the entry to the sewer, where I 'live'. I stumble in the door, partly phasing through the wood. I pick up one of the potions, the silvery liquid sloshes up the sides of the glass bottle, parts of it going translucent then back to its original grey, opaque colour. I down the bottle and cringe at the taste, it tastes like ashes, funnily enough.

Then the door crashes inwards, and Fundy marches in.

"Son, I –" I begin, slowly regaining my strength.

"Will, let him talk." Phil interjects, face like stone. Fundy slowly regains his posture and with scary intensity and calmness,

"You left me when I needed you most and now you pretend you don't remember." He said, the anger that he had on the pier slowly dissipating, evolving into disappointment wrapped in heart break. Phil stands to the side, looking at the floor of my house. The house I use to hide from my past, to hide from my orphaned son.

"I was 16, Will, I didn't need a hero or a president. I needed a dad." I'm crouching, still an inch from the ground, from the weakness of neglecting my body, and I look up at the man before me. Fundy looks down at me, maturity etched on his face, a fire roaring in his eyes. We stay there for a while, just looking at each other.

Phil looks up and in my peripheral vision I can see him looking at the wound that had sealed my fate. I looked down at the gash in my stomach, the wound that I had bled out of when Phil, my own father, had stabbed me. It was my dominant volcano, after doing its job it stayed there, as a symbol and a reminder. My exit door out of a life of pain and out of my own son's life.

I continued to look down, not daring to look up and my son, wishing not for the first time that I could remember my life before. I hear Phil and Fundy's footsteps as they exit the house and as soon as the door closes my heart breaks, for the second time in my 'life'.