Ethan Smestad

Sally kneeled in front of her doll house, holding a partially-bald barbie doll in her left hand, and a nail-polished He-Man action figure with a melted club foot in her right. She placed both dolls in the baby’s room, where a Polly Pocket was waiting to be tucked in. Daddy He-Man sat down in the rocking chair to rest his cumbersome clubfoot, and Momma Barbie bent over to tuck the baby Polly into bed.

“Thank you mommy ,” Polly Pocket said, “Now can you tell me a bedtime story?”
Momma Barbie said, “Polly, you’re a big girl now, you don’t need bedtime stories.”
“Besides,” Said Daddy He-man, “Mommy and Daddy need to talk to you about your toys.  You’re too big to be playing with toys now, so me and mommy are going to take them.”
“But Daddy, I love my toys, they’re my friends!”
“Daddy used to have fun toys too, but mommy made daddy sell his toys, because she needed to buy new dresses for when she goes out at night looking for a new daddy.”
Momma Barbie turned around to Daddy He-Man and shook her whole body at him, her arms raised stiffly above her head. “Polly, it was daddy’s fault when he told mommy he could sue the factory for injuries and then lost the case—and his rights to disability. Since Daddy’s a cripple now, we have to sell your toys.”
Daddy He-Man stood with difficulty and raised his arms stiffly above his head. “Go shove a mother-fudging pie in your face mommy, it’s the only thing that gets you to shut up!”
“Go to heck, you useless garbage!” Said Momma Barbie as she tip-toed over to the window. Daddy He-Man leaned against the bed and put his fist on Polly’s pretty blonde hair. “Polly, I promise Daddy’s going to find a new job he can do from home, but until then, Daddy needs you to grow up and stop playing pretend.”
“But why, Daddy? What’s wrong with playing with toys?”
“There’s nothing wrong with playing with toys, but there are things that everyone has to do, and they’re not always fun, but they have to happen. Life isn’t all fun and games, we have to do as we’re told.” Momma Barbie spun around on her toes and kicked Daddy He-Man off the bed with both of her legs. Daddy He-Man let out a yelp and fell straight on his face while Momma Barbie wailed on him with her whole upper body.
“You rat-faced fudging liar! You’re never going to work again in your life, you’d sell her innocence on the street if you could!”
“What do you mean, sell my innocence, mommy?” Daddy He-Man struggled back to his feet, and lifted Momma Barbie over his head and began to spin her round and round.
“You crazy bee-ayee-tee-cee-ayech, I can still kill you, so I’m not useless yet!”
Pretty Polly Pocket untucked herself from bed and jumped up and down, screaming, “Help me, Boba Fett, help me, you’re my only hope!” Daddy He-Man threw Momma Barbie to the ground and turned towards his Polly.
“Boba Fett can’t save you, he lives in a galaxy far, far away. Face it Polly, you’re stuck here with us, and there’s no way for you to escape—
Exploding through the invisible fourth wall, Boba Fett came flying into Polly’s bedroom and sent Daddy He-Man crashing to the wall, flat on his face again. Polly Pocket jumped for joy on her bed: “Boba Fett! I knew you’d come for me!” Momma Barbie & Daddy He-Man stood and turned towards the bounty hunter, his laser rifle trained on them both.
“That’s right, Polly,” Boba Fett said, “My new spaceship is a million times faster than the old one, and it got me here just in time to save you.”
“You can’t take our daughter,” Momma Barbie wailed, and her patchy blonde hair flew into a frenzy. “We need her here so we can scream and yell at her!”
“Yeah,” Daddy He-Man chimed in, “She needs to stay here so we can punish her and make her miserable.” Daddy He-Man boldly hobbled up face to face with Boba Fett. “Now I’m gonna punish you!”
“Not so fast,” Said Boba Fett, and pyew! pyew! pyew! Boosh! Argh! Ahh! Boba Fett blasted Momma Barbie to the floor, grabbed Daddy He-Man in a headlock, turned on his jetpack and flew with him out of the dollhouse, way up high, as high as Sally could get standing on her desk, and let Daddy He-Man splat onto the floor. Pretty Polly Pocket jumped for joy in her room.
“Thank you, Boba Fett, now I get to do whatever I want!” Boba Fett flew back into the bedroom and sat on the bed next to Polly.
“What do you want to do now, Polly? Should we play toys together?”
Polly inched closer to Boba Fett, so that they were almost touching. “Boba Fett, Mommy and Daddy were actually right. I don’t want to play with toys, I want to play with you.”  Polly leaned her head against Boba’s metal-plated shoulders. “Will you take off your helmet for me?” Boba Fett took off his helmet quickly.
“Yes, Polly, now that I think about it, I’m in love with you too. Will you marry me right now? I’ll make you my queen of the universe, if you just kiss me on the lips—
“Oh, yes, Boba Fett! Kiss me! Kiss me—

“Sally, what in the hell…” Sally looked up at her father in his dirty jeans, leg cast, wolverine t-shirt, and saw his face full of horror. Sally was wide-eyed frozen in place, with Polly Pocket and Boba Fett’s faces mashed together. Daddy took slow steps into the room, his mouth agape, and Sally saw the mighty power of Grey Skull in Daddy’s eyes. “You took him out of his box.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“Sorry? Sorry, she says.” Daddy hobbled in circles around the room, rubbing his face. “And you remember, Sally, how I told you Boba Fett is—was never supposed to leave the box?” Sally stood up, dropped Polly Pocket to the floor and offered up Boba Fett to Daddy.
“I’m really really sorry, I’ll never—
“Where’s the box?” Daddy’s voice quivered as he scanned the room, towering over Sally.   Daddy followed Sally’s glance to the ripped packaging on her desk, the plastic wrapping torn to shreds, and the box itself crumpled. Sally stared at the floor, still offering up Boba Fett to Daddy until he smacked her hand away and sent Boba flying across the room. “What do I need that for now? That’s five-hundred dollars you just ruined, Sally, I was going to put you through college with that package one day!” Sally collapsed to the floor and burst into sobs. Daddy continued to hobble around the room, his voice growing more and more fearsome. “There are only thirty of these packages in mint condition in the whole world—well, I guess it’s twenty-nine now—and you couldn’t just do as you’re told, why, Sally? Was it really worth it to ruin your future, to ruin my things?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Sally repeated through choking sobs. Daddy grabbed Sally by the shoulders and pulled her up onto her feet, hard.
“How old are you, Sally? Tell me how old you are.”
“Ten.”
“Speak up, Sally!”
“I’m ten!” Sally would have fallen to the floor again if Daddy weren’t holding her by the shoulders so tightly.
“This is what the other girls at school do too? They play with dolls and pretend to do bad, naughty things with them? Is that what girls your age like doing?”
“I don’t—
“What? You don’t what, Sally? Answer me!”
“No!” Sally blubbered as boogers ran down her lips and blood rushed to her face. “They don’t, Daddy, they don’t do that, I don’t do that, I promise—
Daddy let go of Sally and hobbled towards the door. “Stay in your room. When Mommy gets home, whenever the hell that is, we’re gonna talk about what to do with you.”

Daddy closed the door to his office behind him and turned the lock. He examined the walls lined with action figures, eighty percent of which were still in original packaging. Only a few select figurines were out of their box, arranged into a scene on his desk: The Undertaker stood on the roof of the A-Team van, posed with two sub-machine guns, and a skin-tone painted Catwoman posed on all fours between the Undertaker’s wide stance. The Adam West Batman lay pinned and defeated under the wheel of the van, and Jubilee of the X-Men knelt by his head and consoled him with the one arm she possessed—the other arm was missing in action. Daddy sat down in his nice leather office chair and began to undo his belt.
Daddy laughed surreptitiously. “You’re fucked now, aren’t you Barbara? Was Mr. West’s tiny prick worth it?”
Jubilee stood up and raised her arm stiffly above her head. “Greyson, I’m so sorry, I know I made a mistake now, and I know you’ve made mistakes too!”
“Cutting off your arm was no mistake, bitch!” Blam! Blam! Blam! Jubilee screamed and fell over, her arm still raised stiffly above her head. “There are no second fucking chances, whore.” Catwoman purred through pursed lips:
“That gets me so fucking hot, watching you give that bitch what she deserves. You better give me what I deserve, Greyson.” Daddy unbuttoned his pants and pulled out his penis. With his other hand, he posed the painted Catwoman in a receptive downward dog, then backed the Undertaker behind her.
“I’m not gonna kill you yet Barbara, first, you’re going to watch me fuck Catwoman’s brains out the way you never let me. I could’ve given you the best lay, if you’d only let me do it my way.” The table began to shake in jerking tremors, an earthquake of sexual passion exploding through the scene. Catwoman meowed and moaned and cooed:
“Punish this pussy cat, punish her!”
“Fuck you, Barbara, fuck you! Yes!” The Undertaker and Catwoman fell from the roof of the van from the force of the tremors rocking the desk. Daddy grunted and growled like a beast, and just as he approached his climax, he heard the doorbell ringing. “Fucking Shit.”
Greyson tried to persist through the doorbell ringing, again and again, until he lost his erection, furiously buttoned up his pants, and answered the door. A woman in a grey dress suit was flanked by two police officers on either side. Greyson put on his best smile. “Hi, can I help you?”
“Mr. Masterson? My name is Sharon, I’m with Social Services.”
Greyson Masterson caught on quick and his smile vanished. “Did my wife call you?”
The two cops looked at each other for a split second before stepping up and restraining the crippled daddy. Greyson writhed and fought with everything in him. “You can’t take my fucking daughter, she’s mine!” Sharon from Social Services stepped through the doorway and examined the house. “Fuck you, you hear me? She’s my daughter!”
Sharon looked around the room, never addressing Greyson directly. “We have a court order provided by a Judge—and yes, your wife did call us. Thank God she did.”

We’ve now spent three days down here effectively, and while my father and uncle worked on legalities and financial stipulations, I sat on the porch with my face in a book the entire time. Now, don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed escaping into another world for uninterrupted hours, but I only realized today, on our last full day here, that I was spending my last time in this place so deeply embedded in my heart, completely ignoring it.

What suddenly opened the floodgates for me was riding into Pell City with my father and uncle to get our last dinner, and watching the sun set. I had never felt so much sorrow in my life over a sunset, as if it truly was the last day ever. I felt like I’d wasted my precious time in this beautiful place that I would never see again, and watching the sun inevitably fall lower and lower, I felt panicked that I had to catch the sunset over the lake, take the canoe out once more, swim and lounge in the water, listen to Montezuma by Fleet Foxes as I soaked up sunlight, blue sky, forest, everything real, beautiful, precious, and now slipping out of my fingers with every moment. I needed to spend time thinking of all my loved ones now absent: my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, and now my grandfather–nearly the whole damn family– I recalled how it felt to hold each of them, the way their skin felt, how I wrapped my arm around them, the way you can recognize someone just on how it feels to touch them. I remembered how when I hugged Pop, we always scratched each other’s backs. By this point, I was in fact catching the last bit of sunlight down on Pop’s dock on Logan Martin, and as I recalled how it felt to feel all of them, I fell to my knees, forehead on the planks, and I felt, thought, said: “Thank you, thank you so much.”

I can’t make the spirits of my loved ones appear, believe me I’ve tried very hard to invite them to contact me, but none of it’s worked. I have to let them go. If the sunset told me anything, so simple but so true, it was that people in your life are there for a time, and then they’re gone, that's a guarantee. You have to love people while they’re right here in front of you, because one day they will be gone and it will be too late to let them know you love them.

Love the people in your life while they’re here, it’s not as long as it seems. Love life while it’s here, so that you can let it go without a regret. I’m going to wake up at the literal crack of dawn and watch a sunrise on Logan Martin–something I’ve never done before, and will never do again. I’ll take a picture for you, Pop.