Bad things II
Title: Bad Things II
Genre: Sci-Fi
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Unpleasant themes, death
Summary: From Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse five:
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
Wayne Dolan Oak was one of those rare men who’d been born into a family with ways and means. Ways and means to ensure that all was for the best, in the best of all possible worlds. He’d attended the best private schools, gotten accepted into the best Universities, done the best in all of his exams, graduated with the best marks, even looked the best on his graduation day. He’d attended interviews and been given the best jobs, been seen out and about with all the best women, and eventually he’d proposed while in the best possible situation. When everything was perfect, every hair in place, every second of the night going exactly to plan, and the wedding had been put together by the best planners, the bride had been taken care of by the best stylists, her dress had been crafted by the best of the bridal wear industry, and the day had been the very best one of their lives.
Months passed, years passed, and as Wayne Dolan Oak glided into the best years of his life he and his family were living in the best house money could buy, they had the best interior decorators working for them. The birth of their first son had gone perfectly and he was all lined up, even at the tender age of six years old, to start at the best primary school money could buy his way into.
On the morning of May the twelfth, as the world was just preparing to discover the glory of the eighties, Wayne Dolan Oak was taking his beautiful wife Elaine, his adored mother Vivian, and his perfect son, Wayne Dolan Oak Junior, to go and test drive what would be the best possible car for their budding family to have. The only problem was, that the one thing Wayne Dolan Oak really needed, the one thing in his life that he did not have the very best of, was psychological care.
If someone had noticed this earlier then perhaps Wayne Dolan Oak would have thought twice about doing it all so very publicly, perhaps he would have seen doctors and taken drugs and had therapy sessions and spent some time in a hospital and come out seeming just perfect again. Maybe he would have done what all the nice damaged people do and taken his life privately, taken one too many pills and left his family to their perfect existence, or maybe talked to Elaine about it, explained why he just had to leave and never come back. Maybe he wouldn’t have left quite such a gaping and bloody exit wound.
Perhaps, if you went far enough back, if you fixed enough things soon enough, then he never would have done this at all, perhaps he would have adjusted to perfection, and built a truly perfect life for his truly perfect son to follow. It’s even possible that if you changed something, far back enough, he never would have chosen the perfect life in the first place, it’s possible he would have gone off and done something totally different.
Not that it mattered in the end, because he was so careful that no one did realize in time to stop him. No one ever thought that he could have been planning this for so long, no one ever thought that he would be able to end his entire family line from behind the wheel. It wasn’t until the gleaming body of the stylish DeLorean was already half submerged in the water of the freezing cold lake that anyone began to suspect that something was wrong, not until his wife was sobbing and trying desperately to keep his six year old son above the water line and his mother was screaming one word over and over, “Why?”
Slowly, Wayne Dolan Oak turned his head to face his mother, to meet her outraged, wounded expression. Letting her see the strange sad moment of regret mingling with pride, the moment that he lost everything he loved and his final moment of victory. As the glass behind him shattered and the water rushed in to claim the last four members of the Dolan Oak family, Wayne’s answer was swallowed up into the roar of the pressure drawn tide flooding into the car. His last words died in silence as the DeLorean sank to the soft silt at the bottom of the lake.
Genre: Sci-Fi
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Unpleasant themes, death
Summary: From Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse five:
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
Wayne Dolan Oak was one of those rare men who’d been born into a family with ways and means. Ways and means to ensure that all was for the best, in the best of all possible worlds. He’d attended the best private schools, gotten accepted into the best Universities, done the best in all of his exams, graduated with the best marks, even looked the best on his graduation day. He’d attended interviews and been given the best jobs, been seen out and about with all the best women, and eventually he’d proposed while in the best possible situation. When everything was perfect, every hair in place, every second of the night going exactly to plan, and the wedding had been put together by the best planners, the bride had been taken care of by the best stylists, her dress had been crafted by the best of the bridal wear industry, and the day had been the very best one of their lives.
Months passed, years passed, and as Wayne Dolan Oak glided into the best years of his life he and his family were living in the best house money could buy, they had the best interior decorators working for them. The birth of their first son had gone perfectly and he was all lined up, even at the tender age of six years old, to start at the best primary school money could buy his way into.
On the morning of May the twelfth, as the world was just preparing to discover the glory of the eighties, Wayne Dolan Oak was taking his beautiful wife Elaine, his adored mother Vivian, and his perfect son, Wayne Dolan Oak Junior, to go and test drive what would be the best possible car for their budding family to have. The only problem was, that the one thing Wayne Dolan Oak really needed, the one thing in his life that he did not have the very best of, was psychological care.
If someone had noticed this earlier then perhaps Wayne Dolan Oak would have thought twice about doing it all so very publicly, perhaps he would have seen doctors and taken drugs and had therapy sessions and spent some time in a hospital and come out seeming just perfect again. Maybe he would have done what all the nice damaged people do and taken his life privately, taken one too many pills and left his family to their perfect existence, or maybe talked to Elaine about it, explained why he just had to leave and never come back. Maybe he wouldn’t have left quite such a gaping and bloody exit wound.
Perhaps, if you went far enough back, if you fixed enough things soon enough, then he never would have done this at all, perhaps he would have adjusted to perfection, and built a truly perfect life for his truly perfect son to follow. It’s even possible that if you changed something, far back enough, he never would have chosen the perfect life in the first place, it’s possible he would have gone off and done something totally different.
Not that it mattered in the end, because he was so careful that no one did realize in time to stop him. No one ever thought that he could have been planning this for so long, no one ever thought that he would be able to end his entire family line from behind the wheel. It wasn’t until the gleaming body of the stylish DeLorean was already half submerged in the water of the freezing cold lake that anyone began to suspect that something was wrong, not until his wife was sobbing and trying desperately to keep his six year old son above the water line and his mother was screaming one word over and over, “Why?”
Slowly, Wayne Dolan Oak turned his head to face his mother, to meet her outraged, wounded expression. Letting her see the strange sad moment of regret mingling with pride, the moment that he lost everything he loved and his final moment of victory. As the glass behind him shattered and the water rushed in to claim the last four members of the Dolan Oak family, Wayne’s answer was swallowed up into the roar of the pressure drawn tide flooding into the car. His last words died in silence as the DeLorean sank to the soft silt at the bottom of the lake.