Fathers Last Story

I was dying in the hospital when my dad came to see me for the last time.

I had a rare heart defect, one in five hundred thousand, the doctor said, and it was slowly killing the organ that kept me alive. I had been completely unaware of the defect when I'd collapsed at work a few weeks ago. I had died three times on the way to the hospital, and when they finally got my heart started properly, I was immediately put on a donor list. The chances weren't good, but they were there. My doctor said I might last a month, but it would probably be more like a week or two. I lay in bed, weak as a kitten and unable to do much for fear it would damage my heart further. Dad had been coming to see me every day, reading to me and talking to me, and for that, I was thankful.

Dad and I hadn't always had the best relationship, you see. When I was a kid, I could swear he hated me. He was always closed up in his office, working on this book or that book but never really finishing anything. Dad had been a prolific writer in his hay day, forty books over a forty-year span, and most of them had gone straight to the bestseller list. It was as if he couldn't write a bad book. I had read some of them, and they were inspired. His books were how I got to know dad in the early years of life. That, and his stories, I guess.

The only time I really saw dad, was when my mom coaxed him out of his office to tell me bedtime stories. He never read a book though, they were always straight from his head. He had hundreds of stories, easily telling me a different one every night up until I was too old for bedtime stories. The stories were how we bonded, how we became close, but after every story, he would look at me as though he remembered something awful and excuse himself.

It wasn't until I was almost out of Highschool, that he really tried to get to know me. He came into my room one day with something I had written and asked me if I had really written this? I was speechless, mostly because my dad never really came to ask me things or have a normal conversation with me. He looked so proud at that moment, so different than he had at the end of each of those stories, and when I told him I had written it, he did the last thing I expected him to.

He took me to his office and finally let me see the things he'd been working on.

His office was meant to be a guest room, I would guess, but the walls were covered in maps, diagrams, story threads, and all manner of notes. His computer hummed happily in the corner, and he showed me a filing cabinet full of resource books on genealogies and histories of characters he was writing. I was floored. How had he been working on this for so long and not published anything? When I asked him, he looked a little ashamed and said something about not writing anything since I'd been born.

"Not that it's your fault." he added hastily, as though he thought I would jump to that conclusion, "I just...I guess I became kind of a coward."

That never made sense to me, not until later.

After that day, my dad and I were inseparable. He helped me edit my stuff, helped inspire me to write more, and helped me find people who would help my work be seen. By the time I graduated Highschool, I had several scholarships to study creative writing and English at several colleges, and I had decided to "take up the family trade" as dad always put it.

I was in my second year of college when I was hospitalized.

I didn't know if I'd ever get to attend a third year at the time.

Dad smiled when he saw I was awake, closing the book and looking at me, "Glad to see your awake. How are you feeling?"

I tried to smile back, but it just wasn't in me, "Like I'm about to die at twenty before I get a chance to live."

Dad shook his head, "Something will come through. Don't worry, you've got a lot of life still ahead of you."

He set his book down, his hands shaking a little as he laid it gently on my nightstand.

"Remember when I used to tell you stories?" he asked, looking out the window as he seemed to think about everything and nothing all at once.

"Yeah," I said with a little smile, "I gotta say, dad, I thought those were the only times as a kid that you really liked me."

He looked back at me, and his face was sad, "You weren't far off. You were always a perceptive kid, had a lot of me in you, I suppose. I guess I was mad at you for a long time. I just...couldn't get over it. When I saw that you had the gift, though, I couldn't hold back how proud I was of you. Your mother had chided me for years, you know. "He's just like you. He's the spitting image of you. Why do you shun him? He loves you, and he wants to know his father." But I just, I just couldn't."

I furrowed my brow; it was weird to hear him talk like this.

"Why were you so mad? What did I do?"

"Nothing, it's nothing. I...hey, I thought I'd see if you wanted to hear another story; for old times sake?"

I was a little taken aback by the suddenness of his offer, especially after what he had just admitted to me.

"Sure, I guess," I finally said, lying back as the pain in my chest flared up again, "I could use something to take my mind off the pain."

He eased back in his chair, settling himself in a stoic way that I had always equated to storytime. He always sat like he meant to get something off his chest, and as a kid, it had made me laugh in my head. Dad took his stories so seriously, and that always made mom and I smile. Stories were his life, it seemed, and they were the only thing he really had other than us. The money never seemed to matter to him, not really. The stories were his wealth.

"It's about a man, a storyteller, who makes a deal he doesn't quite understand."

And so, dad started what would be his last story, though I didn't know it at the time.

Marshal lived in a village of normal people who had normal jobs. Some of them were millers, some were carpenters, some were farmers or smiths. Marshal, however, did not have a normal job. Marshal was a tale-teller. He would craft tales to tell the king and the court to amuse them. The king paid him handsomely for his stories, and he was known far and wide for his outstanding stories. He told them in the court, but he also told them around the city well, in the theater, or in the marketplace. People loved his stories, but Marshal had a problem.

Marshal was getting old.

Marshall had never married, never conceived a child, and he feared that his legacy would die with him.

That was when Seraph came to him and offered him a deal.

Seraph was not a human, like you and I. He was a demon, and he was a demon who made deals. He gave people money, he gave them power, he gave them what they truly desired, and in exchange, he took their souls. He offered Marshal wealth; he offered him fame to rival the kings, but what Marshal really wanted was time.

"I want to be the man who writes a million stories, the best tale-teller in all history."

They bartered, they dealed, and finally, Marshal had his price.

"You will live until your five hundred thousandth tale is all told. When that story is told, and the cover is closed on it, you will come with me, and I will collect my payment." Seraph said.

This sounded acceptable to Marshal, five hundred thousand stories was still a great many tales, and he signed his name in the black book.

Marshal went on to live for hundreds of years. In that time, he also found that he remembered the stories he wrote with an almost photographic memory. He traveled the world, telling tales and wowing crowds, but soon, he found his time was growing close. Five hundred thousand stories sound like a near-infinite number, but as the centuries passed, Seraph would appear to him and let him know how close he was getting to his determined count.

One day, he appeared to him, telling him that his time was nearly at hand.

"Your count is high, tale-teller, and you have nearly reached your peak. You have one hundred stories left to you. Use them wisely."

At this, Marshal became greedy. He saw those stories as sand in his hourglass, and he hoarded them jealously. He wrote sparingly for the next hundred years, but inspiration must be served, and soon he was left with but a handful of sand left. He stopped writing, stopped answering the call, afraid of the deal he had made and the smiling Mr. Seraph. Then, he made a misstep in a long and careful life, a misstep that would cost him everything.

A Misstep that would save everything.

Dad jumped a little and reached into his pocket as his phone vibrated. He looked at the screen, sighed, and got up to go. He said he had to take this, that it was very important, but that he would see me later. I gasped as he rose to leave, floored. Dad had never failed to finish a story, never left an audience hanging.

"Wait, what misstep? What happened?"

"Sorry," he said, "I'm out of time, it seems. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, okay? Try to rest easy, and remember that I love you, kid."

Then he left, and I never saw him again.

I did, however, hear the end of his story.

I was waiting for dinner when a frantic group of techs rushed in to wheel me out for surgery. A heart had come in very suddenly, and they needed to get me into surgery before my condition got any worse. I asked them to call my parents, asked them to call my dad, and they said they would. Right now, however, they had to get me prepped and ready for the procedure.

When I woke up, my mom, my uncle, and just about my whole family were gathered around me.

Everyone but Dad.

"Wheres Dad?" I asked, looking around, sure he must be there, but Mom bit her lip and started to cry a little.

My uncle told me later that he hadn't even talked to my mom about it. He had gone to my physician and donated his heart to me before coming to visit. The physician had been hesitant, hadn't wanted to kill a man to save a man, but Dad had talked to him and convinced him it was for the best. He hadn't even called my mom until he was going in to be put to sleep. He told her he loved her and that she must take care of me now that he was gone.

Then he had given me his heart.

I sat in my room afterward, my eyes leaking steadily. Why would he do this? Why wouldn't he tell me? He had to know that I wouldn't want him to sacrifice himself for me. Why was my life more important than his? Why should I matter more than him?

I swung my fist out angrily at the nightstand, and his book half flopped onto the edge. I grabbed at it, looking at the cover of one of Dad's journals. This one was a blue and gold spiral pattern and looked new. Dad had tons of journals, I had seen them in his office, but most of them looked old and worn like they'd traveled halfway across the world. This one was brand new, and I opened it to find his clean, neat handwriting inside.

He had addressed the first page to me.

Hey kid, if you're reading this, then I guess they went through with it. Don't be too upset about it. I had a good long life, and I'm glad to have known you, at long last. It's better that your mother have you, instead of losing both of us anyway. That probably doesn't make a lot of sense, especially since I assume I never got to finish my story. I wrote it all down on the next few pages. Feel free to read through it. It's as much your story as it is mine. I love you, kid. Take this old heart and have a great life.

Dad

I flipped through the pages until I found the place he had left off. I knew his final message should have made me sad, but I wanted some answers. The story, it seemed, was what I needed. He had said it was "as much your story as mine now," and I wanted to know what that meant. Why had he said that it was better that he die than both of us die? Why would my death have killed him?

I found the place and started where he had left off.

A misstep that would save everything.

He fell in love. He had met thousands of women on his travels, but this was the first one to really touch something inside him. The two of them fell in love and began a life together. The day she told him she was pregnant was the greatest day of Marshal's long life. But as he held his infant son in his arms, Seraph appeared with gleeful news.

"Congratulations, Marshal. You hold your final story."

Marshal demanded to know what he meant. This was no story. It was a baby. It was a living thing. It wasn't part of their bargain. The demon was lying, he was trying to trick Marshal into something, but Seraph assured him this was not the case.

"That child is, without a doubt, your greatest story. His tale will be rich, full of life and wonder, and when you close the cover on him, our deal will be done. Unless," he laughed, "you decide to write something else." he laughed then, drinking in Marshal's sneer as he disappeared as quickly as he had come.

Marshal had sealed his own fate, and for that, he could not forgive himself.

Forgive himself, or the child, it seemed.

That was the end.

I stared at the words, trying to put the pieces together. Was...was my father Marshal? Is that why he had done the things he did? Had he sacrificed himself because he knew that his life would end if mine did? I stared at the page, my mind racing as I tried to figure out what to do with this knowledge.

I still don't know what to do with it, but I will not squander my father's gift.

If I am to be his final story, then I will try to live up to his legacy as best I can.

I owe him that much.