November 13, 2024

Grandpa's Boy
by Tim Law

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai podcast.


​I know things, things that I shouldn’t know and those things make me smile. Grandma May knows I know, I hear her telling Dad all the time, warning him.

“I’ve seen that boy of yours give a little smile whenever we pass by the old tennis courts,” Grandma says. “It’s every day, at the same place.”

“Maybe he likes sport, maybe he’s inherited dad’s skill,” my dad replies.

“Maybe,” says Grandma, but she is not convinced that it is sports I’m interested in.
“It’s not natural,” she adds. “It scares me.”

She is old, so one day she will die. When she does, all of her suspicions will die with her. I don’t know though if I can wait for that to happen. I can’t let her expose my secret, Grandpa’s secret.
 
At school I and my friends catch flies. We keep them in little boxes and stick pins through their wings. Sometimes we pin one wing, and sometimes both. When they try to fly away their wings rip apart. The buzzing makes all of us laugh.

“Boys will be boys,” say our teachers as they shake their heads in disbelief.

Those teachers are thinking at least we are leaving the girls alone. Lucky for them, we’re far too young to be interested in girls. Our interest in anything human is probably ten years away, at least. That was when Grandpa John started. The bullies leave us alone, just like we do the girls. They sense that there is something not quite right. I don’t know if those other boys, my friends, are just like me, but they happily follow my lead. Alone we’d get picked on, but as a group, we have a reputation. Maybe one day they’ll grow out of it. Maybe, one day, I will too. I doubt it though. Grandma doubts it. Grandpa used to do things to the baby mice he found. With the flies, I’m just taking his ideas to the next level.
 
The police never found out where Grandpa John buried all of his victims. They hanged him on suspicion alone. I can still feel where the rope burned as he danced, dangling there helplessly. The police asked Grandma May, and my dad, but they didn’t know anything. Only I know. Those police won’t bother asking me anything. They can’t understand what’s not in their rules and regulations. Dad believes in rules and regulations too, logic; the truth. But, some truths are impossible to explain.

“How could dad tell him anything?” my dad asks. “He died at least five years before his grandson was born.”

“I don’t know how he knows,” says Grandma May. “Maybe he found some diary, maybe he talks to ghosts, could be lots of reasons.”

“He’s six, his reading level is that of a six-year-old,” my dad argues, and he’s right.
I haven’t found some secret diary or unraveled a mysterious code. Dad doesn’t believe in ghosts, and neither do I. Souls are a different matter though. Souls with unfinished business are the most likely to want to hang around, to need to live another life. Grandpa has plenty he needs me to do. He doesn’t come to me in dreams or whisper his words in the summer breeze.

No, I am him, he is me. That’s how I know.
 
I know exactly where he would park his car, each training night, and every tennis match. Beneath that spot are two bodies. At the back of the clubhouse, there are three more. People nobody would miss, people who Grandpa thinks did him wrong. These are people who caught his eye or looked at him the wrong way. Grandpa has a long list, and I am starting to form a list of my own. Never touch family though, that’s Grandpa’s number one rule. Me, I’m not old enough yet to follow rules, but I’m getting older every day. When I’m ready to start where Grandpa stopped, Grandma might be first. Rules are made to be broken.


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Tim Law has loved to write from a very young age, but has only recently discovered the joy of being published. He is happily married to a wonderful girl, a proud father of three humans, and a reluctant father figure to four cats. He writes fantasy, science fiction, general, detective, humour, and a lot of weird stuff that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. He encourages everyone to give writing a go. Some of his stranger stories can be found here on the Kaidankai, but if you want to read more try his blog.