His father told him this world was his Petri dish. He placed him in front of mirror and showed him what his specimen had been. He grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the stale master bedroom, just stale for him though, rather vibrant in its light violet shade, and stomped at the floor with the most primal instincts. He beat his chest and grew to be too big until there was nothing but a shadow too large to escape from.
His father threw journals at his face, once which were filled with blank pages and told him to make good on his words. ‘Respect your women.’ He was ordered on the days the mood was as cheerful as a cloudless sky and witnessed his mother’s tears on the bathroom tiles most of the days it was not. The first sight of alcohol came from the cellar that was utterly prohibited, accompanied by the lecture of a sober self.
The son told himself he was nothing but a specimen, the clay that was to be molded by the hands of the creator. So he studied footsteps and made good on those blank journals, cultivating a life that was as sour as the beer he snuck in to his room. He waited for approvals that would never come, hoping against all odds that one day he would be counted worthy, perhaps even, worthwhile. He sculpted out of himself a man he detested, one he could not runaway from no matter the number of times he had tried to escape under cover of night.
He was, as expected, his father’s son, living under the roof of another son that had chosen to bend under the shadow of a prior father, unaware of a cycle that lasted generation.
He was his father’s son even though he never wanted to be anything but himself.