The divorce had ruined me financially so if I was going to be the “cool dad,” I knew it was going to have to be achieved without the crutch of expensive gifts and fun activities. I would have to actually become a cool person.
“Someone who people feel naturally drawn to,” I explained to Dr. Glovings, my stuffed bear.
The opportunity presented itself the very next day when I arrived to pick my daughter up from school. She was standing with her friends on the curb and as I drove by, she waved. I smiled and waved back, but then I pretended that the brakes to the car weren’t working.
I rolled along with a look of panic on my face, just fake pumping those breaks. I could hear my daughter and her friends kind of freaking out and it was hard not to laugh. Then I realized that the brakes really weren’t working. I crashed into a tree and the car lit on fire. Then, I lit on fire when I was trying to escape the car.
The flames engulfed my entire body and so I began to stalk forward, blindly and in the direction of where I’d seen my daughter and her friends. I tried to be cool and act like nothing bad was happening.
“How was school?!” I screamed. “Do you feel like ice cream?”
I felt like ice cream. I also felt like water. Like, a big trashcan full of water. I was burning alive for Christ’s sakes.
There were screams all around me, but I continued to lurch forward until the police gunfire eventually made me lose my balance. Okay, fine, Mr. Cool Guy. It was more than losing my balance. I was dead before I hit the ground.
THE END.
