I don't think you can hear me old man, but it doesn't matter, really. I can't spend my time with such thoughts. Time is money after all, that's what you used to tell me, remember? Remember when you gave me that little gold watch? I don't think so. Remember when you used to laugh so hard at Charlie Chaplin on TV that you had tears in your eyes? «Funny little jew» you'd call him. But those were the good days. The days when the monkey on your back hadn't gotten too heavy for you, when the chip on your shoulder hadn't pulled you under completely.

But the bad days came. And when they came, they hit us as hard as you used to hit mom. While she was buried I remember an old photography of you and her, you had an arm around her and I realized then all you had taken away from her. The gleam in her eyes that had slowly gone out with the years. Her smile you had sworn so many times «to wipe from her face». The way she'd sing and dance across the room with an invisible stranger.
In the end you had made her a lifeless robot, draining all spirit and life from her.

I'll let you in on something I'm sure must have tortured you for a long time now. Why didn't she try to fight back when you'd scream and spit at her, why didn't she slap you anymore when you'd hurt her, just like she had in the beginning? I can tell you that, now it doesn't matter anymore: She wouldn't play your game.

You were just waiting for her to hit you back, you needed her to try and scratch your eyes out, for at that moment you'd have had a reason to make her body crash even harder on the wooden ceiling.  But she knew better than playing this game with you. Even more: her deepest satisfaction, up until the moment she died, was to know she could get under the skin.

To know that you couldn't understand why she wouldn't just answer violence with violence, that somehow you still had some power over him he could never get over. When she'd be just like a puppet in your hands I'm sure it must have freaked you out, didn't it? But eventually when you'd had enough you just pushed her. I wonder, what did you think about when you were atop the stairs and you looked at her dead body?

You remember how at her funeral you put your hand on my shoulder and told me «life's frail son, get over it» and you spat on the ground. Your friends you had invited, all dressed in black, I could see them snicker like deranged hyennas in black

That was the moment I left you, I left this little shitty town of yours so I wouldn't become just like you. But though I don't have a father anymore I'm still your son. That's why I carry a picture of you and mom in my bag. So that when my girl sees what mum saw in your eyes, I can pull it out and remember who not to become.

And now you're lying in your bed, and a few tubes are the only things that keep you alive. You know what your good buddy frankie told me just a while ago? «don't worry, son, he'll make it, he's tougher than the rest» Isn't that funny?

I look at you and I remember how mum looked at me when you used to drag her up the stairs by her hair and her head hit each stair. And I try to come up with a reason not to pull the plug.
And the only reason I've been able to come up with is that I know you wouldn't have hesitated. So I sit here and look at you. But you were right, old man, time's frail. And I'm afraid it's time to stop your machine. Sooner or later. Couldn't take the risk you'd survive it, could I?