an unfamiliar sound

tomoatmeal:

The divorce had ruined me financially so if I was going to be the “cool dad,” I knew it was going to have to be achieved without the crutch of expensive gifts and fun activities.  I would have to actually become a cool person.

“Someone who people feel naturally drawn to,” I explained to Dr. Glovings, my stuffed bear.

The opportunity presented itself the very next day when I arrived to pick my daughter up from school.  She was standing with her friends on the curb and as I drove by, she waved.  I smiled and waved back, but then I pretended that the brakes to the car weren’t working.

I rolled along with a look of panic on my face, just fake pumping those breaks.  I could hear my daughter and her friends kind of freaking out and it was hard not to laugh.  Then I realized that the brakes really weren’t working.  I crashed into a tree and the car lit on fire.  Then, I lit on fire when I was trying to escape the car. 

The flames engulfed my entire body and so I began to stalk forward, blindly and in the direction of where I’d seen my daughter and her friends.  I tried to be cool and act like nothing bad was happening.

“How was school?!” I screamed.  “Do you feel like ice cream?”

I felt like ice cream.  I also felt like water.  Like, a big trashcan full of water.  I was burning alive for Christ’s sakes.

There were screams all around me, but I continued to lurch forward until the police gunfire eventually made me lose my balance.  Okay, fine, Mr. Cool Guy.  It was more than losing my balance.  I was dead before I hit the ground.

THE END.