As long as I can remember, my father has been an alcoholic. His whole world was in bottles. Through alcohol he heard and saw the world, through alcohol he spoke to the world. He knew only this way and did not look for another. He crumpled up the whole world and put it in a bottle. Like a master who builds ships in bottles.
But my father's world in a bottle was terrible, full of hatred, resentment, infantilism, and manipulation. I had to live in that world with him for a long time. I had to listen to him for long hours to contain the fire that could have killed my mother and me. I had to save my mother and myself from death.
My father was burning and his world burned with him, and in that world my mother and I were burning. We cried and thought that our tears would extinguish those fires. We thought that we could be a family. But it didn't happen.
Instead, there was a lot of blood dripping. Everywhere my father went, there was blood and pain.