Fear...

It was just a day. It was a day like so many other days. Totally unremarkable. Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast and go to school. But, this day felt different when I came home. There was a palpable tension in the air when I came in the house. Even a thirteen year old boy who is normally immune from the emotional weather in his house felt a big, a really big storm brewing. Even at thirteen you have a survival instinct that activates itself. I think it is Gods way to give us an ever so slight advantage over the devil. There’s this little voice we hear in our heads at times of imminent danger and we respond accordingly and most often automatically. My dad was sitting silently in the living room watching the television. I just got home from school and I started for my room and he turned his head and looked at me. It was not a look I recognized and it didn’t feel welcoming. The tiny voice in my head began to speak, ever so softly, “something’s wrong…time to go back out…”. I could feel my stomach flip as I scanned for clues as to what would come next. He got up, shut off the television and said, “Go get your brother, we’re going for a ride.” I am just standing there thinking that my brother was the smart one for not coming in the house after shool. “Ok, where we going?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. “We’re gonna ride up the road and wait on your mother to get off work”, he said. I started out to go and get my brother and that voice started up again. “You are going to meet your mother??” She has her own car I thought to myself. Then the questions really began to come rapid fire. There was a definite sense that something was not fitting together here and for the first time I actually felt scared of my dad.