Records

After every race he came home and queued the VCR. It never struck me as weird that he recorded his own races; it seemed like the natural thing to do.

He never said that he wanted to watch the races with us, but still we never watched them live. We would ignore the fact that our father was racing at over 200 miles per hour while we played in the backyard. We waited to watch his races with him.

So we didn't see him fireball. I doubt that any of us really wanted to, but I saved the black tape anyway. He didn't leave much behind, so it was sort of a small memento.

"I'm really sorry Jake."

As I grew, I began to realize that Dad didn't come home to watch his races because he enjoyed watching them with us; he was watching for little flaws. He was watching because he couldn't put the race behind him yet. I don't know if he ever did.

He didn't leave much behind to begin with, big things mostly; a big TV, a big computer, and a huge checking account. I decided he just didn't own small things; he was not the type to dote or dwell on anything small. I think he was the largest thing he knew of.

To be honest I liked my original draft better (it might be posted here, I don't know). This one might be stronger in a literary sense, but it strays from the original feeling that had motivated the story in the first place. Fun fact, this story originated from fragmented dream.

-Dan