Maintenance

Some fathers never stop checking on the house.

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The shrill metallic creak of the front gate of the semi-detached home gave Ethan Long a jolt out of bed that was sudden, yet too familiar. He had heard it before. Too many times.

At exactly 3:03 a.m. Every windless, silent Father's Day dawn that the teenager didn't particularly embrace.  

The gate, with crooked spikes, cast a shadow where the light shone, extending an invitation. 

The sound always grated in his ears and heart. Year after, for the past six years. 

A tall silhouette --recognisable, barely identifiable--under the gate's lamp post. 

The only distinguishing feature?  Sunglasses. Oddly-shaped. Hexagonal. 

A shape Ethan wanted to identify. Yet never had the wherewithal to. 

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The figure's form, however, etched itself into Ethan's 16-year-old mind.

June arrived, as did Father's Day.

A sweat-ridden Ethan waited behind a hedge of untrimmed bougainvillaea. 

The streetlamp spilt a gold halo wrapped in thick mist, around the gate's least obvious corner.

Not unclear to Ethan. 

He waited. 3:03 a.m.

The gate sighed open.

The figure appeared.

Not walking. Waiting. 

Ethan bit his lip. He couldn't help it. He found himself staring despite a heart that palpitated beyond control. 

The hexagonal sunglasses. 

It finally stepped through the gate. moving soundlessly in the garden, then to the back of the house. 

Then it paused. Ethan's heart hammered in his chest, a mallet that wouldn't stop knocking.

It turned. And looked back. 

At him.

His jaw dropped anyway.

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A familiar, but pale, gaunt face that he had missed for six years. 

Framed by his favorite hexagonal sunglasses. 

Every Father's Day.

The figure did not speak. The man Ethan knew never really did. 

A male figure that had raised him, yet, for six years, feared knowing. 

Ethan continued staring at the recognizable but now gaunt, pale face. 

His own skin felt clammy, yet warm beneath. 

"Why are you here...now?"

It answered with a look not of threat but --

Urgency.

His skin suddenly lost its warmth.

The figure beckoned silently, crooking its finger, 

It turned and walked, footsteps light and fast, to the back of the house. 

Where his younger brother's room was. 

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The figure paused beside the window outside his brother's room, pointing, lips pursed, to something at the bottom of the exterior wall.

A hornet's nest. 

Buzzing. A few were inching closer to the window's ledge. 

He continued pointing, then tilted his head towards them. 

He had been responsible for maintaining the nooks, crannies, faucets, plumbing and wiring around the home. And no one had continued that. 

For six years. 

Hornets.

The buzzing heightened in intensity. 

Closer to his sleeping brother. 

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The hexagonal sunglasses shielded his eyes, yet Ethan couldn't escape their concern.

He sprinted back to the front of his house and into the hall. He punched the buttons on the telephone, unconcerned about breaking the encasing crystal. 

An exterminator arrived within the next hour, greeting a visibly tense Ethan, who had been pacing the hall.

His little brother had already run out of the room and looked up at him from the sofa, bewildered eyes open.

Ethan brought the pest controller to the window. The figure was still there, watching intently. 

Seen by none but him. It nodded. 

And pointed at him. 

Ethan understood. 

The hornets? Gone. 

His brother? Safe.

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Original Father's Day Coming of Age Ghost Story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.

For Mikeydred's June challenge

Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.