The Orphan Of Ages:Vignettes:Fathers Day
Father's Day The old mother snaps the forking twigs off of a long dried branch and throws them idly into the pile. The Sun hasn't set yet, but the trees surrounding the compound have shadowed the land. She bounces the toddler in her lap. She giggles through the dandelion in her mouth.
Her children run up to the old mother with hands full of insects and flowers to show her. She smiles at each and calmly identifies the organisms by name for the children who want to know.
As the Sun sinks the younger mothers begin lighting the fires. The children gather round with the sticks they've found and are handed marshmallows. They sit and toast them and listen as the old mother tells stories.
Eventually, one of the younger mothers asks the question. Someone asks it every year, and every year they wait for the story.
She asks: "Why isn't their a Father in the world above?"
Somewhere far away, where the Sun is higher in the sky, another mother sits on his porch and watches the children run around in the dust. Here there are no trees in sight, just wide open space and clear sight-lines to the distant fences. The mother wears socks with sandals, shorts, and a mustache, because that is as it should be.
Only four children are with him, and they are grown. Two are daughters, and two are sons. One son sits and holds his baby girl. The other son wears black and stares beyond the playing children to the far horizon, eyes constantly darting around the distance. One daughter is standing and looking through a manilla folder. The other daughter is leaning back in her trucker hat, calm and relaxed.
The dried bodies of seahorses hang like windchimes from the porch ceiling. They don't move in the still afternoon.
"Listen," the male mother says, "And you can hear the world screaming for him." He offers his children beers, and they each take them. The trucker-hat daughter produces a bottle opener for them.
"They scream for their absent father," the children repeat in unison when the bottles are open. They raise them and drink. The two standing only sip, the seated ones drink deep.
"When the world was young there were no fathers," says the old mother. She shifts the toddler on her lap as her leg is falling asleep. "The children of Gaia were not stupid, but neither were they knowledgable. They could see in the faces of children that they were kin to one man or another, when looks and eyes passed through. They knew too that children did not come forth to virgins. But, no child looked exactly like their father, so they had no way of knowing they belonged to only one man. All men, they believed, who slept with the woman had contributed to the child. Since all were fathers of all, they had no unique bonds, no special loves.
"So the men went out into the world, and returned with prizes and discoveries for their tribe, not their children alone."
The male mother rubs his paunch. If he was a woman, he might be mistaken for pregnant. As he is, they call it a beer gut.
"They ask 'what would the Founding Fathers do'," says the son with the child. "Seeking approval of men long gone." He had celebrated this day by spending it with his daughter, even though she could not tell the difference between him and his twin. His twin watched her more often. He had given his father a book on George Washington. The same book he gave him last year.
"They beg their holy father to tell them they are worthy of adulthood, that they can leave for the real world of mature and sensible people in the sky," says the daughter with the folder. She's tucked the folder away, to better hold the beer. She had bought her father a bounty of ties and cufflinks. She'd made them into talismans and hung them from the fencepost.
"They look to brothers and sergeants," says the son in black. His words sound rehearsed. "To any figure who can hold the empty spot." He honored his father today with the dog tags of men who would never see their children again.
The last daughter stays leaning back. For Father's Day, she bought the beer. "I swear half the fucking movies ever made are about men who need to stop whatever avatar path they're on and go back to being loving fathers." The other daughter glares at her, but she gives her the finger.
The male mother laughs, and drinks his beer.
The old mother stares into the fire as she speaks. The children, mothers and babes alike, are staring at her. The younger ones keep shoving marshmallows in their mouths regardless.
"Than man in his travels found magick that could tame the world. He made grass grow to wheat, made wolves into dogs, made aurochs into cattle, made shelters into homes." She glares into the fire. She sees it no more. She sees instead the ancient past. The next words are cold and low, "He made women into wives. The first slaves."
The fire remains loud, but the people have grown quiet. The men, outnumbered as they are, shift awkwardly. The old mother stares on into the flames.
"In those days men walked into the stars all the time. As the world changed, there were so many new things one could become. Women did not walk the stars, for they stayed planted on the Earth. Men rose to be the Farmer, the Fool, the Thief and, yes, the Father. The Father who stayed in his home, and shaped his children. He was not calm and comforting like the Mother, but strong," she raises her branch above her head, "And fierce!" she slams the branch in her hand hard against the ground with a loud crack and splinter. The children jump, and she smiles mischievously.
The toddler in her lap squirms, and she soothes it with a gentle hushing. The whole crowd seems to calm down.
"The Father was good," the old mother admits, "He was not necessary, but he was useful. He could beat the children in ways the Mother could not, could shape them into adults. The Mother can do this on their own, but things were easier with the Father."
The Sun is very low by now. The sky darkening now. Venus can already be seen.
"But man is not meant to stay at the fireside. He is not bred to be with the tribe. He seeks always outwards. "In Ancient Greece, where the gods were known and the Mystery Cults shaped the world knowingly and with purpose, a man who was lord of his family and his children's families and his children's children's family walked into the stars. The Patriarch threw the Father from Heaven and ruled a new world, where even a man's love was political. He was not to sit with his children and love them, but to use them to greater ends. To shape the world with them."
She stirs the fire with the remains of her stick, watching it spark and writhe.
"In time the Patriarch was thrown out by the King, and the father was now of nations, not people. This is the true nature of men: they shall not cleave to their home. They cannot. The hunt is outside the tribe, and Artemis's call is almost as old as Gaia's, and almost as strong. Man domesticates the world, the world does not domesticate him. Men can domesticate each other, make slaves of each other, but the mother and her family will never bind him. Not while there is a world beyond."
The male mother drinks his beer and listens to his children and grandchildren playing on the ranch. He watches the Sun slowly sink.
"Can you believe they made that Purple motherfucker a father?" he says. "Been fighting Darth Vader for decades, and now this new crap comes flooding in."
"It's not over yet," says the son with the child. "The hero's a father too. It'll probably be a triumph of real loving father over the abusive tyrant."
"A dark aspect is not a bad thing," the daughter with the folder says, "There is the devouring mother. Campbell refers to the father as being master of life and death. This seems a clear enough expression of it."
The trucker-hat daughter looks into her beer, searching for portents of what is coming. "That isn't what we want it to be. We want love and protection."
The other daughter nods. "A territory already claimed. If we are to do this we need to be distinct. We need-"
"The symbols must be broken. Separation eliminated. I'm not doing all this to have it undone immediately."
"The Father shall sit in Heaven eternally," the children intone on reflex.
The male mother smiles and gets up. "Come on, let's go light the grill."
