There isn't much back story to this story, so i think i may as well start by saying this: "No two lives are the same, and so there is no normal, if you're ever looking for something unique... you are one!"

My father was writing a book. It was a long book, he had been writing it for many years. I remember a few months back when I was eight, I asked it if I could go to the park with him, he simply sighed and walked off. I often told mother that he cared more about the book than me, she laughed at the idea, and explained that father loved his family more than anything else. But it never made me fell better, if he truly loved his family, why would he not spare a little time to even go to the park?

For the years that he wrote I would often stand by his door, waiting on him, patiently waiting hours on end. Over time, the hours faded off and became years, on my twelfth birthday, when I went to a new school, I began to make friends, and soon my father was a mere memory.

After a few years, when I was sixteen, my mother grew gravely ill, she was to weak to work and her medication was deer. Soon my paper rounds were all we lived on.

Shortly after my eighteenth birthday, my father announced that he had finished his book. It was many pages long, and each word had been stitched with love that is rightfully mine. That following night I saw my mother and my father, sat together, crying, I realised that the book was not quite as it was supposed to be to my father. In fact he didn’t even get it published.

In the next week me and Mother where told that Father had died. They said that they found him burnt to death during a fire at a nearby house. They didn’t know how or why he did it, but Mother and me knew perfectly. Over time we got poorer and poorer, we moved to a smaller and cheaper home. It was a simple life, we had few belongings, the few things we still retained were old and worthless, but as long as we had each other we were ok. When I was younger I missed my father, and would often flunk school, and so I knew very little, but I think I am still a talented man. I can read and write, but often employers would kick me out when they seen my record. Our family savings drained away, we could not afford medication, and so, when I was twenty-two, my mother passed away.

The only way I still live is though improvising. Thankfully, my house was near a market, I would go there every day and just try to get something worth selling. Whether it was dropped fruit or jewellery or even money, I would grab it, even if someone knew it was there. Soon this scavenging turned into theft, I would zip across stalls, stealing stuff whenever I could. I originally done it when I was really hungry, but it was addicting and I became a real problem. I got sent to jail multiple times, so you can guess how much bother I was. I finally stopped this theft when I was about forty, when I met a young woman.

Her name was Amelia and she told me that her father needed more employers, he was very wealthy but the hours were long. I found that these hours were better that jail, so I started right away. In fact, I didn’t need anything, not even a record. Amelia’s father was really nice, but he too worked long hours, I knew how Amelia felt. I worked there for ten years, but I never grew accustomed to the money. Because there were so little workers, I would often get way more than the average man, I grew up; I bought back our old house and simply lived. I stuck out among employers, and Amelia and I would meet up a lot. It wasn’t long until we got married, and we had all the money and happiness we ever needed. We soon became a family, as a few years later we had a son named Barry.

Although we were happy, I still had a hole in my life where my father was supposed to be, a guilt that I could never erase, it made me fell like my family tree was incomplete. Because of this I put all my dedication to my son. When he was eight, he said he wanted to be a writer. I told him about my father and about his book, not the sad bit though. He asked me what the book was about; I explained to him that I didn’t know. He ran off to get the book, and together we rewrote it. It took about a year to read to start off with. Then, for an hour a week, we would type up on the computer every single word, but better. It was a long book, more than a hundred chapters, and our days grew long, these sessions grew short, it was because of the great detail we put in every single word. When Barry was twenty, we submitted the book to the publisher, and it quickly became a star, I gave most of the money to Barry.

I had no use for the money, I was old now, and I got grandchildren over the next ten years. I picked up the original book, and read it, I was surprised how different it was, and then right at the back I found a page I had never seen before. It read: “This book was written for my son, in hope that it will guide him in excellence. My son is the most important thing in my world, and I want him to live a happy and long life, even without me to start it.” I leaned back, sighed, and fell asleep with a tear in my eye and a smile on my face.