Matchbox-cars and Lucky Packets

“There was a saviour, rarer than radium,
Commoner than water, crueller than truth.”

 – Dylan Thomas

-
In my bed going to sleep sometimes I imagined a giant axe-man poised at the foot of the bed I wasn't scared though, I was much more scared later to think there might not be a God.

As a child when I woke up from a nightmare I called my mother she brought a glass of water and sat by my bed and I told her the story of my dream. Later then when my father had died, from age 18 I had terrible dreams I was terrified of him. It was the drink he wasn't always like that it changes your personality.

I don't really know why she did it but I think it was very good for me and there were some recurring ones like a sensation of falling and jolted supposedly on hitting the ground, apparently a very common kind of dream.

Sometimes of a King Kong in a cage breaking free and chasing me and my mother in my little pedal-car and then there was a red robot. Later, after he died dreamed of him chasing me with his revolver to kill me and that he hadn't really died. I dreamt it over and over. In the end I just confronted it. And it went away.

~

He was only violent when drinking, it made him paranoid too. In times of sobriety he was wonderful, kind, gentle, protective, understanding. Actually just a bit too religious for my mother's liking.

When he was drunk he was a monster when he was angry he went into a rage. Then afterwards always overcome with regret and remorse.

Then he went to the café brought for us each a small toy often a little matchbox car. He was immensely proud of his two little boys. He didn't ever hit my mother just sometimes they shouted at each other. Most of school I feared a family murder so that often I couldn’t fall asleep. I told my mother of my fears she burst out laughing her head off for a few minutes so I kept it to myself told not even school friends.

Later on in high school many evenings I sat by him in his workshop by his lathe, his pride and joy. The main project was a  brass model steam engine. He was very kind and friendly it was pleasant. There he secretly had his beers he said he was very lonely. He told me things I asked advice on girlfriends of course I never listened.

~

My father asked to be admitted to a general hospital with severe alcohol withdrawals (DTs) There he fell from a balcony and died.

I have probably exposed myself too much now but there it is.

~

“And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.”
 – DT