Somewhere he got shoulders.

At 15 he's taken on a man's frame almost overnight.

Time is a river....

I remember well, because I'm pretty sure it was yesterday. Packing him in a snowsuit, then a wagon and heading to the library to search for new Handy Mandy books.

We had him when I was 40.

After six years of failing on a monthly basis.

It was like belonging to the worst fruit of the month club.

Every 30 days you looked at the box with a combination of hope and dread.

Every month the fruit would be turned and spoiled.

It got so I couldn't bear the pain on her face.

72 months later it happened. I got a phone call from Vegas where she was at a conference. Joy literally poured out of the phone. She has not had a bad day since.

I stood there looking at the phone. And brace yourself for a moment of personal honesty . I have always been the pull it out of your ass, make it up as you go along guy. Which has a certain swashbuckling appeal at twenty, sad at forty, at sixty people are wondering how you set the kitchen on fire while trying to fix the toaster

using aluminum foil and a clothes pin.

Due to scheduling and horror stories about daycare I end up being primary care giver. She goes back to work after six months and as the door closes I look at him and he looks at me and we share a thought.

I will fuck this up.

A living monument to ingrained insecurities , self destructive behaviors and egocentric world views am I. Be candid I wouldn't leave a cat in my care.

He's a easy baby, you can sit him down and hand him a book and he'll sit there quietly and look at it. Not much crying, sleeps 12 hours at a shot.

The extraordinary becomes the common day, working my way through a list of a thousand books to be read to him by age four. He seems to dig it...

Still I feel like a fraud , playing a part, fooling everyone and no one.

Until...One day, we are at the beach, big rollers coming in after a storm. He's tugging at me, fearless as two year olds are, to go deeper.

"Easy buddy, we got to be careful." I say.

He looks up, his face open, not a care in the world. "It's OK dad, I'm with you."

With that, all my doubts and apprehensions fell away.

I was a dad.

The warehouse reeked of ginger which it had stored for years,all the way back to British rule. I watched Daphne (her given name) work herself into her third righteous fury in the last hour.

The warehouse was located deep into the Kowloon’s walled city, the default bug out destination programmed into the drone.

She was wearing a coolie jacket and a pair of drawstring pants that I had switched her unconscious form into after removing her soiled garments shortly after arrival (outrage 1).

To decouple her from the cut spinal jack I had to shave a two inch border to access the port on the back of her head (outrage 2).

I explained that we were locked down for the immediate future until both HKs finest and Ideogram Corporate security calmed the fuck down (outrage 3).

Standing up she announced that she was “Otta here!”

I carefully laid the cutdown Bullpup combat enforcer on the chipped formica tabletop in front of me. The four, fat custom loads glimmered wetly in the stark fluorescent lighting.

“Sunshine.” I said. “The data in your head is in high demand by not just me but a certain well established criminal organization. Now, If they don’t receive it post haste they will joyfully kill both you and me. If you attempt to leave I will kill you by shooting you center of mass. Which following,I’ll remove you head , below the coupler, pack it in ice and deliver it to aforementioned criminal organization. Thus removing the middle man with same desired result. Capish?”

Manageble...

#cyberpunk