'dad', you're too fucking late
rating: +111+x

In this world, the sun cannot bear to be too far from the horizon. The day lives in perpetual sunrise and sunset. Stars fill the night-time sky like spilled glitter, immune to any brightness below.



The summer breeze wafted through an open window to an empty office. A red leather chair spun with no one to sit in it. Papers flickered with the wind, unattended. Dr. Wondertainment was not in today. He would not be in for a week.

Only the few employees whom he had tasked with covering his absence would know he had disappeared. Fewer would know why — that he left for a week every summer in the hopes of reconciling his greatest regret as a creator. And, more importantly, a father-figure.

In the noon sunset, Dr. Wondertainment wandered unnoticed through the crowded city streets. He danced between the shadows of a kissing couple, friends out for bike rides, and children walking home from school. Through silhouettes, he arrived at a decrepit apartment in the slums.

Dressed in a pinstripe suit worth more than half the city, the Great Toymaker sat in a moldy lobby and waited as he had for the past decade. When the sun ducked behind the horizon, he retreated to the rooftop to keep company with the stars.

For two days and three nights, he waited in this manner. On the third day, exhaustion claimed him and he slept in a rotting bed. When he awoke, he thought he saw a coat as scarlet as blood.

It was only the sunrise.

On the fifth day, his hope had lost its battle to despair. Dr. Wondertainment wept, bitter and alone.

On the seventh and final day, he wrote an apology letter in golden ink. He confessed his regret for abandoning Mr. Redd to rot in this apartment. He expressed his desire to make amends.

But Mr. Redd was long gone, chasing adventure with all the anger and violence of an unloved, lonely child.

"P.S. I'll be here again next year, on the anniversary I left you. If you'll forgive me, we can go back home together."

The letter was left at the desk of the lobby, among all the other untouched apologies.

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