Dad... Please Forgive Me

Dad... Please Forgive Me

The pub.

We were having a reunion with our elementary school classmates.

It was supposed to be an ordinary evening.

Laughter.

Beer.

Memories of childhood, of a time when we were still innocent—untouched by the things that would later shape us.

But I was no longer innocent.

Not even close.

His past was flowing through my veins—bitter and burning like cheap wine.

My father.

The man who drank...

who went to treatment...

who lied...

and who, in my eyes back then, always disappointed us.

And I hated everything I thought I saw in him...

I was standing outside, caught between the silence inside my soul and the noise spilling out from the pub.

A storm of emotions churned within me.

Then one of my closest friends walked over and said something.

To this day, I can't even remember what it was.

An inappropriate remark.

An innocent smile.

That was all it took.

Something inside me exploded.

Like a lid held down on a boiling pot for far too long.

I lunged at him.

My fists clenched.

My vision swallowed by darkness.

My soul overflowing with poison.

I hit him because I didn't want to feel.

I hit him as though my own wounds could somehow be transferred into someone else's world...

...where someone else would have to carry the pain.

And then...

...he was there.

My father.

An ordinary man.

An ordinary figure standing between me and disaster.

He was wearing the vest I still remember to this day.

Dark blue.

The one I knew so well.

The Slovan crest caught the glow of the streetlights.

The very same crest that connects us today...

...but that night it became nothing more than a silent witness to our tragedy.

He walked toward me and placed his hands on my shoulders.

"Jakub... what are you doing?"

he asked, as though his voice alone might break through the storm raging inside my head.

It didn't.

I clenched my fist...

...and struck him.

Squarely in the face.

That blow was more than a punch.

It was the explosion of everything I had buried inside myself for years.

I watched blood pour from his nose.

I watched it drip onto that cursed crest...

...a symbol that, in that moment, felt like nothing but cruel irony.

He stood there.

He didn't defend himself.

He simply looked at me.

There was no anger in his eyes.

No surprise.

Only sorrow.

The sorrow of a father watching his son fall deeper than he himself had ever fallen.

I ran home.

Not by elevator.

Up the stairs.

Every single step felt like a sentence being carried out.

I was both the judge...

...and the executioner.

I was convinced I had to finish what had begun.

What kind of son strikes his own father?

And what kind of father believes he has raised such a son?

The questions collided inside my head, swarming like poisonous bees.

By then, I was no longer driven by anger.

Only hatred.

Hatred toward myself.

Toward him.

Toward everything we had become together.

By the time I reached the apartment, I was completely out of breath.

My fists were still burning...

— JK —