My father was a weird figure, sat under a bridge
with a bottle in a paper bag, looking at the river.
I think he was looking for something he had lost
when he was young. When he had sat there long
my mother sent me to pick him up. Father never
spoke, it was like he had given up on conversation.
At work, he was known as the silent man. When he
retired, his employers wanted to give him a watch
for long service, but he didn´t show up, preferred
to sit under a bridge with his bottle. One day, when
I came to pick him up, he wasn´t there but was found
floating down-stream. My father was a dreamer,
he had wanted to be an actor before he married,
mother thought that was a stupid idea, instead he
got a steady job at a factory making plastic ducks
and garden gnomes. When knowing this, I mourned
a man who had given up everything up for his family.
