Reunion

“Hi Dad.”

“You haven’t changed much.”

Mark hadn’t seen or spoken to his father in almost ten years and it was uncomfortable from the moment the old man had opened his front door.

They’d fallen out over a series of things Mark now considered trivial and he had decided it was time to bury the hatchet.

They sat in the living room, Mark hoping to catch up on the last few years, his father seeming much less interested.

They drank their tea in absolute silence.

“I need to chop some wood,” his father said, nodding towards the diminished wood pile next to the roaring open fire.

“I’ll help you!” Mark enthused and jumped to his feet. He sensed this was a good chance to bond with his father over something the old man would consider ‘manly’.

“Aye, ok.” No enthusiasm whatsoever.

The two of them took it in turns to chop wood. This was also done in absolute silence.

“You were always such a disappointment to me,” Mark’s father decided to say, out of the blue.

Now Mark remembered why he had cut the old bastard off. Anger raged within him. His grip on the axe tightened.

It wasn’t exactly a hatchet, but it was buried soon enough.