If Only They Knew

He stumbles in from the pub knocking a chair over as he enters the house. He slams the front door waking the baby. He pushes his way into the kitchen to find his wife asleep at the kitchen table, her hand resting in his stone cold meal. He shakes her awake and shouts her conscious, he sends her upstairs until the baby stops crying. He pulls the whiskey down from the shelf and tells himself it’ll just be a nightcap, and then one turns into two and two into three and soon he wakes up with his head in the mashed potato and it’s six in the morning and the dog wants a walk. He kicks the dog, it yelps and runs under the cupboard, where it’ll stay until he leaves for work. He hears movement upstairs and goes to see who’s around, it’s his nine year old boy, his tear streaked face looks up at his father, his eyes begging for a quiet life, he heard his parents arguing late into the night. He pushes his son out of the way, tells him to grow up, his son slips narrowly missing the stairs and then he runs and hides under his covers. He gets dressed for work; his chest swells with pride as he looks in the mirror. He reaches for his keys and his wife cowers away, he doesn’t even bat an eyelid, he’s used to this reaction. As he arrives at work he sees himself in the cells, he sees himself in the people that he’s locked away. Then he goes out on the beat, he chats to his colleagues, they make the arrests they’ve all been hoping for. It’s his last day in the force, he’s been there for as long as he can remember, so they all go to celebrate his lifelong dedication. And he receives a medal for the work that he’s done, and to them he’s a hero. And the criminals are all locked away, because of him. The rapists, the wife beaters, the child abusers, they’re all in prison, he’s made the world safe. But inside his house, inside his world, his family still cower, his family are still afraid, because the criminals are all locked away, but he roams free and he puts the fear of god into the ones inside his world. He stumbles in from the pub knocking a chair over as he enters the house. His wife shrieks in pain as he hits her awake, the children wake up and the baby starts to cry. And to the town he’s a hero, he appears in the newspaper. Photographs of him and his family smiling away, and they tell his wife what a wonderful man he is, and his children get special treatment because he’s their daddy. If only they knew. 1