“I’m just so angry. I can’t calm down. It’s the children, it’s what he said to the children, there’s something not right about it.”

“He’s a wonderful father. He probably just cares too much. He would never do anything to hurt them.”

“I don’t want to believe it, but I heard it. I can’t ever go back to a time before he said that.”

“You have to tell me what he said.”

“It’s too awful.”

“Come on.”

“He said he wished he never had any kids. That he should have divorced me before I was pregnant with them. He completely regrets being a father.”

“Oh God. That’s so dark.”

“I’m shattered.”

“He couldn’t have really meant it. He loves those children. And they love him!”

“It really seemed like he meant it; he had that look in his eyes, you know the fury that he gets. I don’t know what he’s going to do.”

“Where is he right now?”

“I don’t know. He left to go drive around. I’m scared about what he could do.”

“Maybe you should call the police. I’m scared.”

“ I’m scared to come out, but what do I tell them?”

“Just tell them how angry he got, and how he was talking crazy. They’ll just come and check him out. He’s bound to show up here at some point.”

The police came, but he never returned to the house. He was out in the streets, giving a speech to no one.

“Every day they take another piece of me. Every day there’s a little bit less of what I used to be.”

“You have kids and you start a family because you love someone so much that you just want to make more of it. But what really you make more of, is misery. You really just spread it out, two more people, more mouths to feed, more people to disappoint.

“More lives that you can ruin, kids, that you can turn out into the universe to have them abused and murdered and degraded. What’s the point? What’s the goddamn point?

“It should end with us. This generation should be it. We have run our course.

“I’ve seen what can happen to people. I’ve seen how they die. I’ve seen how they suffer. I don’t need to do that anymore. I don’t need to see more.

“All these little ways, all these pieces of me, they disappear forever.

“All of the naïve things that I’ve hoped for. I’m such an idiot. I should’ve known this was how this is going to turn out.

“When you have hope, you just get fucked over worse. It’s better never to hope, never to try. I’m done. I’m done.”

He wandered the streets, night after night. He hadn’t spoken to his family for months. He muttered to himself. He had seen too much; he had learned how the world really worked. He wasn’t going to participate in the lie anymore.

He left the city and wandered the countryside The words hammered in his head as he walked, ground down, until he was nothing but dust.