Look, we're in a real mess. This is how it all starts: Our father was living another life nobody knew about. You could say he had a taste for danger. He understood what it felt like to be a killer, even though he's technically never killed anyone before. Like, if we tell you we see "the deer" in our backyard, you don't know if we're talking about one or multiples, unless you're right there with us. He used the word "wife" in a similar fashion.

Listen. Let's make something clear: He's been like this all along. He's thought of himself as a big shot ever since he set records in the V-sit reach on the Presidential Physical Fitness Test back in grade school. Medically speaking, he really is better than everyone. And he's been using people indiscriminately for his own purposes ever since.

Now, it appears as if he's gone into hiding, but really he's drawing up plans, establishing a perimeter, and keeping a lookout—all while living inside a combination laser tag and paintball center. He's completely unburdened except for the violence of spattered neon.

So that's the situation.

Upon hearing the news, his original wife a.k.a. our mother ended their marriage in the former smoking section of a regionally successful chain restaurant.

When she confronted him about his double life, he shrugged and said, "It's just one of those things."

He knew he was pushing it, but after licking his pie plate clean, he added, "One single life is no place to live," as if he were talking about the suburbs of Dallas, Texas.

That restaurant does bake really good pies. We can't blame him for that part.

She shook out her folded napkin like she was waving a white flag.

There's no denying they'd been having problems. You don't need us to spell it out for you. Him drawing a chalk outline of his missing candy bar on the kitchen counter, among other incidents, had already pickled their relationship. Snacks can save your life, but they can also be a weapon. However, that stunt did impress her a little. She felt moved by the chalk outline in a way that she shouldn't have.

"I've got an important meeting," she said, sliding along the vinyl booth while holding her container of leftovers.

She thwarted his shouted directives by jumping into her getaway car and scooting over back roads until she reached a farmhouse beside a small potato patch, never to be seen again. For all we know she's since dedicated her life to the tuber. We're still gathering facts here.

Meanwhile, he went to the store and ended up staring at a woman's net bag of groceries—the kind that somehow stays together despite its many holes—thinking this must be what it means to hold on loosely but not let go.

What does he care? He has everyday lasers. Take a look around. We already are. But those lasers don't work on us. We were promised ponies, and now we're researching how to have ordinary conversations with humans while we're underneath blacklights, behind fake-brick walls made of foam. We have a bad track record with small talk.

His bonus wife found out about his double life while she was performing brain surgery. Her assistant broke the news upon peeling back the patient's bone flap.

Enough with this story. It's nothing special. His interpersonal dealings no longer matter. We're all used to this sort of thing, from him and everyone else.

Yet there he is, consulting with a paintball gun at great length, hoping it will help him understand what it all means. He's only just becoming aware that guns are a poor substitute for control, even if they're paintball guns.

The gun tells him to get on a plane, any plane, and so he does.

The pilot says "this short flight" over the intercom as part of the whole spiel, but to our father it sounds like "this short life." He thinks the pilot must be one of those philosophy majors who was forced to reevaluate after graduation and start all over again.

From the evidence that'll eventually pile up, we'll learn that our father will legally change his name every single year, taking over a different person's life at the same time. Depending on the year, he'll replace a CEO, pastor, doctor, mayor, even a postmaster general, and nobody will be able to tell the difference. But who knows whether he'll actually have people fooled, or whether these people won't care enough to notice the change, or whether there really is any difference between them at all.

Regardless, he will go on existing. He will get away with it—all of it, everything, whatever you want "it" to be.

Here comes.


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