friends only.
You are old enough to enjoy stories, now, Baby, so let me tell you a story. Let me tell you a story about Gettysburg -- honey-moonland -- of a man from the town of Gettysburg itself, called into duty days after the battle, to clean up the remains -- rolling up his sleeves and gathering the slain bodies, row upon row, digging graves in an endless line, building bonfires of broken horses and broken mules, breathing clouds of flies and the steam of blood and soil, burying and exhuming the rows of bodies and limbs, all day long for many days in succession.
He returns to his home and he is unable to speak, and he sits by the fireplace. His daughters surround him but are silenced to a hush by their mother. They know that this is not the way he used to be. The children whisper, "Why won't Daddy talk?" and the mother says, "That is a father's choice, children," but Mother herself is worried, but then what can she say to him, either?
She whisks her daughters off to bed, their toys left behind them on the floor, and then goes off to bed herself, taking a long look back into the main room at her husband, still seated by the fire, still silent.
The night passes and the children awaken. They run downstairs and there, while the birds sing outside and a wind blows through an open window, they find their father lying asleep in his chair next to the fireplace embers. They are happy that he is resting and they go to their breakfast. It is only later on when they go to play that they realize that something is different, but they don't know exactly what, and so they give the matter no second thought, laughing with each other and reaching for their dolls which they find lined up in neat rows up against the side of the dolls' house.
-Douglas Coupland
He returns to his home and he is unable to speak, and he sits by the fireplace. His daughters surround him but are silenced to a hush by their mother. They know that this is not the way he used to be. The children whisper, "Why won't Daddy talk?" and the mother says, "That is a father's choice, children," but Mother herself is worried, but then what can she say to him, either?
She whisks her daughters off to bed, their toys left behind them on the floor, and then goes off to bed herself, taking a long look back into the main room at her husband, still seated by the fire, still silent.
The night passes and the children awaken. They run downstairs and there, while the birds sing outside and a wind blows through an open window, they find their father lying asleep in his chair next to the fireplace embers. They are happy that he is resting and they go to their breakfast. It is only later on when they go to play that they realize that something is different, but they don't know exactly what, and so they give the matter no second thought, laughing with each other and reaching for their dolls which they find lined up in neat rows up against the side of the dolls' house.
-Douglas Coupland